Artoon
Japanese video game development company
Artoon Co., Ltd. (株式会社アートゥーン Kabushiki-Gaisha Ātūn) was a Japanese video game developer established in 1999 by former Sega members, namely Naoto Ohshima and Yoji Ishii. The studio was primarily affiliated in the United States with projects on Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360, although they had also worked with Hudson Soft and Nintendo on other platforms.
Artoon was situated in Yokohama, Kanagawa, with a secondary office in Naha, Okinawa. It became a subsidiary of AQ Interactive in May 2004, and was fully acquired in June 2005. Around 2010, Artoon, along with AQ's other development studios Feelplus and Cavia, were absorbed into AQ.
Overview
Early years (1999-2004)
Artoon was founded on August 27, 1999 by Yoji Ishii, along with Naoto Ohshima, both of whom had left Sega the previous year. Additional ex-Sega staff joining Artoon included Manabu Kusunoki, Hidetoshi Takeshita, Yutaka Sugano, Masamichi Harada, and Takuya Matsumoto. Most of the Sega members hailed from Sonic Team, but a few (like Kusunoki) also worked on the Panzer Dragoon series at Team Andromeda. The studio's name was taken from the word "cartoon". Throughout its life, Artoon employed approximately 85 people.
“Artoon” enters the record as japanese video game development company. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Artoon, Japanese and video can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Artoon” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Artoon, Japanese and video provides the most credible route into that argument.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2865851. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1999, 2004, 2005 and 2010.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Artoon”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Artoon primary sources, Artoon archive and Artoon research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Artoon”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Artoon” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.