Initially operating from a single-room
apartment, Technōs was founded in 1981 by three staff members of
Data East. Their first game was
Minky Monkey, released in 1982. A few months after its foundation, a lawsuit was brought up against the company by Data East under allegations that Technos had stolen data from Data East's arcade game
Pro Tennis with the intent of producing and selling a bootleg of it. The two companies settled in August 1983 and Technos would go on to create the arcade games
Zeroize and
Tag Team Wrestling published by Data East. Technōs Japan's earlier games were published by other companies, as Technōs at the time did not have the economical resource to distribute its own games.
Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun ("Hot Blooded Tough Guy Kunio"), a side-scrolling
beat-em-up released in 1986 about a
high school student who fought thugs and delinquents from other schools, was the company's first big hit in
Japan.
Kunio-kun was released in the west as
Renegade with the game's graphics changed to make the game marketable in the overseas market. Technōs would then produce a
Nintendo Entertainment System version of the game, which would be Technōs' first game for the home console market. Technōs Japan's subsequent arcade beat-em-up,
Double Dragon, was a big success worldwide when it was released in 1987, leading to the production of an NES version of the game, as well as licensed versions by other companies for various platforms. The success of
Kunio-kun led to the production of numerous
spin-offs and
sequels starring the same character produced for the 8-bit Family Computer platform in Japan and later for the
Game Boy and
Super Famicom, resulting in more than twenty games starring Kunio by the mid-1990s, many of which were rule-bending
sports games. A few
Kunio-kun games were localized for the North American market; namely
Super Dodge Ball,
River City Ransom and
Nintendo World Cup, but none maintain any connection with each other. Technōs would attempt to remedy this by attempting to localize several
Kunio-kun under the ''Crash 'n the Boys
label, but only Crash 'n the Boys: Street Challenge'' was released (the game's ending features a teaser for
Ice Challenge, which was unreleased). Technōs also released two arcade sequels to
Double Dragon:
Double Dragon II: The Revenge in 1988 and
Double Dragon 3: The Rosetta Stone in 1990 (the latter was developed by an external development team at East Technology), and produced the respective NES versions of those games, as well as
Super Double Dragon in 1992, an original installment for the
Super NES. An American-produced
Double Dragon animated series and a live-action film were also made as well. Outside the
Double Dragon and
Kunio-kun games, Technōs produced a few original games for the arcade and home markets such as ''
U.S. Championship V'Ball, The Combatribes and Shadow Force
, as well as two WWF arcade games (WWF Superstars and WWF Wrestlefest), but most of these games (aside from the WWF arcade games) did not achieve the same kind of success that Kunio-kun
and Double Dragon'' achieved. The company's last games were produced for the
Neo Geo hardware, which include a
Double Dragon fighting game based on the movie, its second and last fighting game
Voltage Fighter Gowcaizer, and a Neo Geo sequel to
Super Dodge Ball. By 1996, Technōs Japan declared bankruptcy and ceased operations. Some of the developers who worked on the Neo Geo titles (including Kengo Asai) briefly worked at Face, a former affiliate of
SNK.
Post-bankruptcy Following the closure, a licensing company named Million Co., Ltd was formed to purchase the former intellectual properties of Technōs Japan. Million continued to produce new games such as
Super Dodge Ball Advance,
Double Dragon Advance and
River City Ransom EX for the
Game Boy Advance,
Super Dodgeball Brawlers for the
Nintendo DS, as well as reissuing older titles via the
Virtual Console and other services. In June 2015, Arc System Works acquired all intellectual properties of Technōs Japan from Million Co., Ltd. == U.S. subsidiary ==