Shoeisha/Tohokushinsha era According to an interview with Sunrise members, the studio was founded by former members of
Mushi Production in September 1972 as Sunrise Studio. Rather than having anime production revolve around a single creator (like Mushi, headed by
Osamu Tezuka), Sunrise decided that production should focus on the producers. The market for mainstream anime (such as manga adaptations, sports shows, and adaptations of popular children's stories) was already dominated by existing companies, so Sunrise decided to focus on robot (mecha) anime, known to be more difficult to animate but which could be used to sell toys. The founding members of Sunrise were seven people from Mushi Production's production and sales department: Yoshinori Kishimoto, Masanori Ito, Eiji Yamamoto, Yasuo Shibue, Masami Iwasaki, Kiyomi Numamoto, and Yasuhiko Yoneyama. However, when the anime production studio lacked funds for the new anime studio, Sunrise Studio sought investment from Japanese recording studio, film distributor & production company
Tohokushinsha Film and planning and production company Shoeisha. Although the founding members left Mushi Productions before its terminal bankruptcy, they also had insider knowledge of Sunrise Studio's internal affairs and structural problems. This corporate culture has served as a major lesson for the then-new anime studio's management as of September 2025. Specifically, Sunrise established a management policy that "creators should not be in management positions". As a result, while the company has maintained its own studios following the establishment, almost all actual production work, other than production progress management, has been outsourced to other Japanese animation studios. While the studio's initial management team emphasized the quality of its anime productions, they also prioritized maintaining overall profitability and sound management through cost reductions, such as outsourcing as necessary, and various copyright revenues. Sunrise's system of integrating toy product planning as the starting point and core of its anime projects is another key characteristic that has shaped the company to this day. This stems from financial issues in the early days, such as Sunrise's inability to cover labor costs due to its small size and limited resources, and the inability to secure budget to own the adaptation rights to manga.
Split from Shoeisha and Tohokushinsha, Nippon Sunrise era By November 1976, Shoeisha and Tohokushinsha decided to exit the animation production business by selling Sunrise Studio to its members through a management buyout, reorganizing themselves as an independent studio known as and started outsourcing animation production for several animated series produced by
Toei and
Tsuburaya Productions. According to one of Sunrise's members Masao Iizuka, all of its profits of Sunrise's productions like
Reideen the Brave went to Sunrise's former parent Tohokushinsha. In 1981, Nippon Sunrise's first president Yoshinori Kishimoto suddenly died due to poor health. Following Kishimoto's death, Masanori Ito became Nippon Sunrise's second president. In 1985, Nippon Sunrise announced its entry into the
Original video animation (OVA) operations. Although they were called OVAs, there were few completely original projects produced by the studio as they instead followed a basic policy of producing sequels to popular productions such as "
Armored Trooper VOTOMS" or projects that were extensions like the OVA spin-off Armor "
Hunter Mellowlink".
Sunrise era In June 1987, the company changed its name by dropping the Nippon name from its branded and was renamed to simply "Sunrise" with the rebranded anime production studio appointing Eiji Yamaura as their new president. Following Nippon Sunrise's rebranding to Sunrise and the appointment of Yamaura as its new president, Sunrise started to shift away from its original focus on original projects and began to produce more animated programmes based on manga starting with the adaptations of
Mister Ajikko and
City Hunter.
Bandai ownership era , Tokyo from 1996 to 2021. In February 1994, multinational toy manufacturer & distributor
Bandai had acquired Sunrise and effectively became part of the Bandai Group as toy manufacturer Bandai entered the film & television animation production business and gained an official animation studio with Bandai's management including Satoru Matsumoto joining the studio. In June 2002, Sunrise launched their wholly-owned music publishing division, Sunrise Music Publishing that would manage all of Sunrise's music copyrights for music development.
Bandai Namco Holdings era, building consolidation and restructuring In October 2005, Sunrise's parent company & toy manufacturer Bandai merged with multinational video game and entertainment company
Namco to form
Namco Bandai Holdings with Sunrise becoming Namco Bandai's animation production & entertainment company as they would expand its production activities with adaptations of several Bandai and Namco properties. At the start of March 2021, Sunrise entered the online website operations with the establishment of its own archival website dedicated to Sunrise's past productions (including works from Sunrise Beyond and excluding works that are now under Bandai Namco Pictures) called Sunrise World. In October 2021, Sunrise announced that they were consolidating all of its units, including its in-house animation production studios alongside its subsidiaries
Bandai Namco Pictures and
Sunrise Beyond under one roof by moving its headquarters into a new office based in
Ogikubo,
Suginami, Tokyo that would bring all of Sunrise's production divisions & subsidiaries under one building. The new building, titled "White Base" named after the Pegasus battleship that appeared in
Mobile Suit Gundam. Sunrise itself became the first that would move to the new headquarters during that month while Sunrise Beyond became the final studio to move into the new building by January of the following year with Sunrise Music, following suit five months later. As part of Bandai Namco's major restructuring, it was announced on February 8, 2022, that Sunrise would merge with the home video unit of
Bandai Namco Arts as well as the Bandai Namco Rights Marketing subsidiary to become
Bandai Namco Filmworks. Sunrise would continue to exists as a label of the company for its animation studio, known officially as a brand with the changes taking effect by April 1 of that year. ==Studios==