is a Japanese publishing company founded in 1947 by Hideto Furuoka, which also produces educational toys. Their annual sales is reported at ¥ 90 billion ($789 million US). Gakken publishes educational books and magazines and produces other education-related products. For nursery school age children and their caretakers, they produce items such as child care and nursing guides. For

school A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

children, they publish text books, encyclopedias, and science books. Gakken also publishes educational magazines for high school students, as well as school guides for all levels. Gakken also provides products for playrooms, study rooms, computer rooms and science rooms. Gakken also publishes general family-oriented and gender-oriented magazines in sports, music, art, history, animation, cooking, and puzzles.

History

Gakken is perhaps originally known for producing Denshi blocks and packaging them within electronic toy kits such as the

Gakken EX-System The Gakken EX-System is a series of educational electronics kits produced by Gakken in the late 1970s. The kits use denshi blocks (also known as ''electronic blocks'') to allow electronics experiments to be performed easily and safely. Over 25 yea ...

, as far back as the 1970s. One of their original lines, the EX-150, was reissued in 2002, and was so popular as to inspire an

expansion pack An expansion pack, expansion set, supplement, or simply expansion is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game, video game or collectible card game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, characters, or an ...

. In 1981 Gakken released "Super Puck Monster", a tabletop LCD arcade game that resembled

Pac-Man originally called ''Puck Man'' in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. Th ...

Coleco Coleco Industries, Inc. was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. It was a successful toy company in the 1980s, mass-producing versions of Cabbage Patch Kids dolls and its video game console ...

also licensed "Super Puck Monster" and released it as an official Pac-Man game. Gakken also released an official Dig Dug game, unlike "Super Puck Monster" this game was only sold in Japan and never exported. In October 1983, the

Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy The is a second generation home video game console developed by Gakken and released in Japan in 1983 for a price of ¥8,800. The system was made to compete with the Epoch Cassette Vision, which had a market dominance of 70% in Japan. The con ...

console was released. Since 1993 Gakken has been publishing monthly logic puzzle magazines under the name ''Logic Paradise''. Gakken manufactured an 4-bit computer known as the

GMC-4 The GMC-4 is the only 4-bit microcomputer to be mass-produced in the last 30 years (as of 2009). It was produced by Gakken, a Japanese publisher who distributed it with a magazine attached to a box containing the components required to assemble th ...

Book series

* Buttercup Babies * Fantasia Pictorial * Gakken Workbooks (also referred to as: Gakkenbooks , Play Smart Workbooks) * Koji series *

Megami Bunko is a Japanese monthly magazine which focuses on bishōjo characters from anime and Japanese computer and console games, edited by IID and published by Gakken Plus. It is known for having many posters, pinups and large pictures among the articles ...

* Nora komikkusu (= Nora Comics), also known as Cain shirizu (= Cain comics) and as Nora Cain Comics * Rekishi Gunzo Shirizu (歴史群像シリーズ) (= History Picture Collection Series), also known as: Gakken Rekishi Gunzo Series * Rekishi Gunzo Taiheiyo Senshi Shirizu (歴史群像太平洋戦史シリーズ) (= Pacific Ocean Military History Picture Collection Series) * Picture Story SeriesPicture Story Series (Gakken)
worldcat.org. Retrieved 26 June 2022.

References

External links

Gakken Japanese homepage

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BusinessWeek Magazine company profile
Book publishing companies of Japan Comic book publishing companies of Japan Magazine publishing companies of Japan Publishing companies established in 1947 Japanese companies established in 1947 Companies listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Japanese brands {{Japan-corp-stub