Kitty Films

Kitty Films (キティ・フィルム Kiti · Firumu) is an anime production company established in 1972 in Japan. The company also operates a record label under "Kitty" or "Kitty Records" (used interchangeably).

History

The company was first established in 1972 as Kitty Music Corporation under Hidenori Taga. It was a subsidiary of Polydor and Universal Music, producing TV drama soundtracks. Their first was for the 1972 film Hajimete no Tabi. By 1979 the company began to branch off into live action with the films Kagirinaku toumei ni chikai buru and The Rose of Versailles (Kitty had no association with the 1979 anime version of the latter, which was made by Tokyo Movie Shinsha). However, major success first came with their anime version of Rumiko Takahashi's Urusei Yatsura. Starting in 1981, it marked Kitty's entry into anime production. Over the next two decades, Kitty Films would become noteworthy in and outside Japan as the producer of most of the animated versions of Takahashi's manga series, including Maison Ikkoku and Ranma ½. Takahashi had in fact attended the same college as Shigekazu Ochiai, the planner of most of Kitty's anime productions.