BEE TRAIN Production Inc. , commonly referred simply as Bee Train, is a Japanese animation studio founded by Kōichi Mashimo in 1997. Since their involvement with Noir, .hack//Sign, and Madlax they have a strong following in the yuri fandom for being involved in series portraying strong female leads with speculatively ambiguous relationships. The studio Bee Train was founded on June 5, 1997 by Koichi Mashimo, who was previously a director at Tatsunoko Productions and the founder of Mashimo Jimusho, a small freelance staff working for other studios. Originally, Bee Train was a subsidiary... of Production I.G along with XEBEC but in February 2006, it ended its relationship and became independent. Koichi Mashimo's goal when he founded Bee Train was to create a "hospital for animators", an animation studio interested in nurturing young talents and artistic quality of production rather than in corporate strategies and profit.
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| Headquarters: | Kokubunji, Japan |