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ONE OF THE HOTTEST properties in Japan with more than 1.500 licensed products on the market, the publishing and design property The Bears' School is built around twelve bears that live together at a boarding school and are really good friends. Mainly targeting pre-school kids and teenage girls, the Bears' School brand was awarded “License of the Year” at Licensing Asia 2009 and an animated movie was released in Japan in December 2010. On the publishing side, more than 1.5 million books have been sold since 2002 and there are currently 16 titles on the market.
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The Bears' School publishing series includes picture book titles following various daily events experienced by the bear pupils (Bakery, Bicycle travels, Laundry etc.) as well as a "first book" series for small children including titles like Go Out, Good Morning and Jackie's Small Stories. In Europe, The Bears' School books have been published by Tourbillon in France since 2004.
The first Bears' School title Kuma no Gakko was launched in Japan in 2002 and became a best-seller with 300.000 copies sold in two years. The series is created and written by Hiroyuki Aihara, a graduate from the School of Letters, Arts and Sciences at Waseda University, who has also launched and edited the Girlie magazine and founded the Pict.Book publishing label. The Bears' School books are illustrated by Gifu Tajimi, a graduate from the department of graphic design at the Tama Art University and also a designer whi has developed several Bears' School stuffed toys and other goods.
The twelve bears in the Bears' School series are Dicky, Wulli, Anton, Albert, Max, Toffe, Harry, Bernard, Peter, Herman, Roy and Jackie - the youngest one and the only girl in the crowd. Together, the bears experience the joy, the challenges and the little dramas of everyday life. They bake for the school party, go for a bike ride at the seaside, celebrate birthdays and fall in love for the first time. Little Jackie is the mischievous one, always bursting into tears whenever things don’t go her way... but she’s always trying her best!
A Bears' School film has been produced by the Japanese studio Fanworks in cooperation with Charaken and released in Japan in December 2010.
Plus Licens represents Charaken for merchandising, promotion and publishing rights to The Bears' School in Europe.
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