was formed in 1997 through a merger between the Asmik Corporation and Ace Entertainment, both of
Japan. The name Asmik comes from its three founding companies:
Ask (formerly ASK-Kodansha),
Sumitomo and
Kodansha. The company is headquartered on the third floor of the Lapiross Roppongi building in
Minato,
Tokyo, and is a wholly owned division of Jupiter Telecommunications (J:COM), which was also owned in
AT-X. Asmik Corporation was founded in 1985 as a subsidiary to the
Sumitomo Corporation of Japan. Its focus was in the area of
video games for the
video game console market, specifically the
NES. It quickly moved on to distribute motion pictures in Japan, and won several awards for doing so. It once had a North American subsidiary, Asmik Corporation of America.