GONZO K.K.

GONZO K.K.
General information
Key people	Shinichiro Ishikawa
Founded	February 29, 2000
Status	Active
Location	3rd floor, Ogikubo Fukuchi Building, 1-10-6 Kamiogi, Suginami-ku, Tokyo
Service	Japan
Type	Animation planning, production, sales and import/export of animation Content investment, investment in artworks, copyright management, etc.
Products	Otobe Sapphire
Affiliation	Studio ENTRE Inc. GEMVOX Yamaha Corporation
Website	https://www.gonzo.co.jp/

GONZO K.K. (株式会社ゴンゾ Kabushiki-gaisha Gonzo), formerly GONZO Digimation Holding K.K. (or GDH K.K.) and currently also stylized as Gonzo K.K., is a Japanese anime studio owned by ADK that was established on February 22, 2000. GONZO is a member of The Association of Japanese Animations. The company's predecessor Gonzo Inc. was established on February 11, 1992, by former Gainax staff members, but was later absorbed into its parent company GDH K.K. on April 1, 2009, and it would assume the Gonzo trade name for itself.

GONZO has not released a major animation project since 2020, with Phantasy Star Online 2: Episode Oracle being the studio's latest major work.

About

GONZO is a global company that delivers the next generation of visual culture through its international network. GONZO strives to "leverage its outstanding creative staff, international marketing capabilities, and the GONZO brand power to take on innovative challenges as a leading company in the next generation of digital visual content."

On August 5, 2024, a collaboration project between GONZO K.K. and Studio ENTRE Inc. (a company with the goal of creating new businesses by combining the broad entertainment business with technology) announced the formation of a new A.I. singer label, "GEMVOX". GEMVOX was announced to be a next-generation label that includes A.I. singers, all named after gemstones, developed using the latest voice synthesizer technology aimed with the goal of having new works created daily by various creators and to provide a series of captivating "AI Singers" that inspire creators' imagination, curate the works produced, and encourage collaboration among creators. The project was launched together with Shinichiro Ishikawa, president of GONZO, who continues to pioneer the use of technology in the anime industry, while also taking advantage of the activities of the AI research group "ARS" (AI Resonate Society). This group had months earlier developed, in partnership with Yamaha Corporation, the private VOCALOID β-STUDIO voicebank L for use in an event titled "VX-β作家ソン".

The first announced vocalist of the company was Shimon Topaz, a mysterious girl with a dark appearance who has a beautiful and clear voice and is trilingual, fluent in Japanese, English, and Korean. Her voice provider was stated to be Korean singer/​songwriter Elley (who previously worked as L's voice provider) and at the time, it was not specified which synthesizer Topaz would be developed for. Topaz was also announced to be featured as the main vocalist for the theme song for the upcoming anime PV, "Gloria". On August 21, the president of Studio ENTRE Inc., Norikazu Yamaguchi, followed up on a blog detailing further details of Topaz's development, confirming she would be sold as a bilingual Japanese-English singing voice database for Synthesizer V Studio (which did not support Korean). The technology was not only to be linked to Dreamtonics Co., Ltd., but would also be collaborating with Techno-Speech, Inc. and Yamaha, intent to create AI singers for various platforms and are preparing various projects.

After Topaz, three other AI vocalists, all of them then-unnamed, were being hinted on the GEMVOX homepage, with no mention of any specific synthesizer engines for them. While silhouettes were only shown for two of those vocalists (packed together as a pair over the placeholder name "???"), an image of a masked man was being shown for the remaining vocal (also temporarily labeled as "???"). On October 13, Yamaguchi revealed that the second AI vocal project would be a masculine singer named Shiraki Jasper; although he was announced to be releasing in November, his target engine was left out unspecified. On October 25, in an article covering the release of Topaz's second anime PV "Wafu", Yamaguchi went on record to reveal that the second project was being developed as a Song Voice for VoiSona. After being delayed from his original November release during a live talk at the Tokyo Musical Instruments Expo 2024 (held at the Science Museum on November 3, where GONZO's Ishikawa conceptualized Jasper as "usually a gloomy character" who, after taking off his mask, "turns into a really weird guy"), Jasper, whose voice was provided by Japanese singer/​songwriter Taichiro Mitsunaga, was given by Yamaguchi a December 11 release date.

Meanwhile on October 15, during a news report celebrating the release of Topaz, GEMVOX announced the "AI Singer Voice Provider Audition" (AIシンガー声主オーディション; AI Singer Koenushi Audition), a major collaboration project with nana Music Co., Ltd. for an audition to pick the voice provider for a future AI singer, who was shown in the banner as a dark silhouette identical (save for the gradient coloring) to the left silhouette from the dual-figure placeholder icon from the GEMVOX character homepage. It was held from October 21 to November 24, with the preliminary qualifying round running from October 21 to November 3 and the main event round then running from November 11 to 24. It was stated in the audition's overview page that GONZO would create an original character just for the audition's winner, whose voice would become GEMVOX's next AI singer. On December 16, utaite Noni was announced as the winner.

On July 28, 2025, in response to a question from a Twitter user, GEMVOX answered that the company had plans to exhibit their newest products (including Topaz's then-upcoming upgrade for Synthesizer V Studio 2, which supports Korean) at various events including the Tokyo Musical Instrument Expo 2025, which would be held in November. After releasing Topaz V2 (a fully trilingual Japanese-English-Korean voice database) on September 17, the company announced on the morning of October 1 that at next midnight, they would air a television commercial for Topaz, with a special announcement to be thrown in as a bonus revealing information about GEMVOX's new upcoming character. On October 2 after 00:00 JST (sometimes written on Japanese TV as October 1 at 24:00), as a "special report" released "ahead of schedule", the third GEMVOX vocalist (after Topaz and Jasper) was revealed to be named Otobe Sapphire, and she would be released on November 6 for VOCALOID6. This release date would be later revised to November 4 after Sapphire's full illustration was revealed on a second TV commercial and on a DTM STATION article featuring not only Sapphire but also her younger sister Otobe Hisui, GEMVOX's fourth vocalist (with release date set for December 15 on VoiSona).

Key people

Shinichiro Ishikawa (石川真一郎, Ishikawa Shin'ichirō), born on January 31, 1967 at the Setagaya Ward in Tokyo, Japan, is the founder, president, and CEO of GONZO K.K.. A pioneer in the anime industry, he founded Digimation in 1996 and GONZO DIGIMATION HOLDING K.K. (GDH) in 2000; both were merged in 2000 to become GONZO Anime Studios, where he has been serving as CEO ever since. He produced multiple television series including Hellsing, Gantz, and the Emmy Award-winning Afro Samurai. He also produced for movies including King of Thorn and Afro Samurai: Resurrection. Before founding Gonzo and its predecessors Digimation and GDH, Ishikawa graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1991, earning a Master of Science degree in Physics, then joined The Boston Consulting Group Inc. (BCG), serving as project manager of projects related to high technology, media, and contents. In 1995, he completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree at INSEAD in 1995, where he also earned the Lister Vickery award for his entrepreneurship, ending up in the Dean's List. He resigned from BCG in 1999 and joined Digimation full-time as its president. Anime News Network Bloomberg IMDb TheMovieDB Wikipedia (jp)

Voicebanks

VOCALOID6

Otobe Sapphire

External links

• Official website
• Official YouTube Channel (@gonzo)
• Official YouTube Channel (Alternate, @GONZODOGA)
• Official Twitter (@gonzo_anime)
• Official Twitter (International, @GonzoAnimeIntl)