Michael "Misha" Kogan (January 1, 1920 – February 5, 1984) was a Ukrainian entrepreneur who founded the Japanese video game company

Taito is a Japanese company that specializes in video games, Toy, toys, arcade cabinets, and game centers, based in Shinjuku, Tokyo. The company was founded by Michael Kogan in 1953 as the importing vodka, Vending machine, vending machines, and Juk ...

Early life

Kogan was born in

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

on January 1, 1920 to Riva and Kalman Kogan. His family moved to

Harbin Harbin, ; zh, , s=哈尔滨, t=哈爾濱, p=Hā'ěrbīn; IPA: . is the capital of Heilongjiang, China. It is the largest city of Heilongjiang, as well as being the city with the second-largest urban area, urban population (after Shenyang, Lia ...

Manchuria Manchuria is a historical region in northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russian Far East south of the Uda (Khabarovsk Krai), Uda River and the Tukuringra-Dzhagdy Ranges. The exact ...

to escape the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of Political revolution (Trotskyism), political and social revolution, social change in Russian Empire, Russia, starting in 1917. This period saw Russia Dissolution of the Russian Empire, abolish its mona ...

, where he later met Colonel Norihiro Yasue, a member of the Japanese Army's intelligence services and one of the architects of the Fugu Plan, a plan to settle European Jewish refugees in Japanese-occupied Manchuria. He moved to Tokyo in 1939, where he spent most of the duration of the war studying at Waseda School of Economics. He moved to

Tianjin Tianjin is a direct-administered municipality in North China, northern China on the shore of the Bohai Sea. It is one of the National Central City, nine national central cities, with a total population of 13,866,009 inhabitants at the time of the ...

in 1944 before returning to Japan in 1950, settling in

Setagaya, Tokyo is a Special wards of Tokyo, special ward in the Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolis in Japan. It is also the name of a neighborhood and administrative district within the ward. Its official bird is the azure-winged magpie, its flower is the Habenaria radi ...

Career

Michael Kogan founded his first business in 1944 in

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

, called Taitung, its business dealings included natural hair wigs, floor coverings, and hog bristles. Kogan closed Taitung in 1950 after the Communist takeover of China and started his second business in Japan shortly after, a company on clothing distribution, named Taito Yoko. The constant loss of products and negligent employees caused Taito Yoko to struggle financially, and it was eventually abolished. Kogan established the Taito Trading Company on August 24, 1953, and it eventually became Taito Corporation. The company started out importing and distributing vending machines and then jukeboxes before evolving to manufacture their own. Kogan died during a business trip in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

in February 1984. After his passing, his son, Abraham "Abba" Kogan, became Taito's chairman and Akio Nakanishi became its president.

Family and legacy

Kogan married Asya Kachanovsky (b. July 6, 1924 – December 21, 2013) and had two children with her, a son named Abraham ("Abba") (b. January 1947) and a daughter named Rita (b. June 1949). The two stayed married until Michael's death. Asya lived in Tokyo, Abba lives in

Monaco Monaco, officially the Principality of Monaco, is a Sovereign state, sovereign city-state and European microstates, microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Regions of Italy, Italian region of Liguria, in Western Europe, ...

, and Rita lived in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...

and was married to

Richard Edlund Richard Edlund, (born December 6, 1940) is an American visual effects artist and inventor. He was a founding member of Industrial Light & Magic, having already founded Pignose amplifiers, and later co-founded Boss Film Studios and DuMonde V ...

, founder of Boss Film Studios and an Academy Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor until her death in 2019. Abba had a 7.16% holding of Taito stock as late as September 30, 1999, while Rita had an 8.50% holding and Asya had a 2.13% holding as late as March 31, 2005. After Asya passed away on December 21, 2013, it was discovered that about 10 billion yen in inheritance taxes for overseas property was not paid.

References

1920 births 1984 deaths Odesa Jews Taito people Russian emigrants to China Businesspeople from Tokyo Russian emigrants to Japan 20th-century Japanese businesspeople {{Ukraine-business-bio-stub