JAKKS Pacific and Dentsu Announce Partnership for New Animated Television Series and Toy Line

JAKKS Pacific, Inc. announces a strategic partnership with Dentsu Inc., a leading producer of Japanese animation, to produce an animated television series based on MONSUNO, a new original Boys Action property.

The MONSUNO property, developed around the concept of re-awakened Monster DNA that finds its way into the unsuspecting hands of adventure-seeking boys, is being simultaneously engineered as 52 animated episodes and an innovative, feature-driven toy property, targeted to boys 6 – 11. As a deeply impactful, action-packed and character-driven entertainment experience, MONSUNO is timed for a 2011 launch in North America, Europe and Asia.

“This new venture is an exciting new direction for JAKKS Pacific into owning our own entertainment and leveraging it into the toy line,” said JAKKS’ President and Co-CEO Stephen Berman. “We have been scouring the globe and are assembling the MONSUNO team, and we believe Dentsu is the perfect partner, given their production expertise and global leadership position in developing children’s television.”

MONSUNO will be developed by JAKKS and Dentsu in conjunction with Dentsu’s Los Angeles-headquartered subsidiary, DCI-LA. Along with DCI-LA’s involvement, Mr. Mitsuharu Inoue will serve as creative director and is the former producer of the hit animated series, Bakugan Battle Brawlers, a Cartoon Network Japanese-animated series based on one of the most successful toy lines in North America.

“We have been working on MONSUNO for the past year and are extremely excited about the momentum we’ve built and the partnerships that have fallen into place,” added Berman. “We believe MONSUNO will be relevant both to TV broadcasters as great content and to toy buyers as a phenomenal toy line with truly demonstrable features.”

Mr. Yoshio Takada, Executive Officer and Director of the Media Services/TV Division at Dentsu, commented, “This collaboration with JAKKS Pacific on MONSUNO has incredible potential. We are confident that our producers and animation teams in Japan will successfully collaborate with JAKKS and our development partners in North America on characters and storylines that will have a global appeal.”