is a Japanese publishing company founded in 1947 by Hideto Furuoka, which also produces educational toys. Their annual sales are 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 the educational institution (and, in the case of in-person learning, the Educational architecture, building) designed to provide learning environments for the teaching of students, usually under the direction of teachers. Most co ...

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, 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, collectible card game or Miniature wargaming, miniature wargame. An expansion may introduce new rules ...

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

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

Coleco Coleco Industries, Inc. ( ) was an American company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as The Connecticut Leather Company. The name "COLECO" is an abbreviation derived from the company's original name which combines the first two letters of "C ...

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 1983, the company released the Gekken FX-System, a

microcomputer A microcomputer is a small, relatively inexpensive computer having a central processing unit (CPU) made out of a microprocessor. The computer also includes memory and input/output (I/O) circuitry together mounted on a printed circuit board (P ...

kit similar to the EX-System. The computer unit featured a 20-key keyboard, seven LED lamps and a single

seven-segment display A seven-segment display is a display device for Arabic numerals, less complex than a device that can show more characters such as dot matrix displays. Seven-segment displays are widely used in digital clocks, electronic meters, basic calculators, ...

that was used to display

hexadecimal Hexadecimal (also known as base-16 or simply hex) is a Numeral system#Positional systems in detail, positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of sixteen. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using ten symbo ...

values. This was placed in a framework that allowed Denshi blocks to be used to connect its inputs and outputs to other devices like buttons and speakers. The 4-bit computer was re-released in 2009, known as the GMC-4. In October 1983, the Gakken Compact Vision TV Boy console was released. Since 1993 Gakken has been publishing monthly logic puzzle magazines under the name ''Logic Paradise''.

Book series

* Buttercup Babies * Fantasia Pictorial * Gakken Workbooks (also referred to as: Gakkenbooks , Play Smart Workbooks) * Koji series * Megami Bunko * 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 Shinagawa {{Japan-corp-stub