Bunkasha

Bunkasha Publishing Co. Ltd, founded on, is a distributor and publishing company of books, manga, anime, and computer games based in Tokyo, Japan.

Around the turn of the millennium, Bunkasha was for the Japanese-speaking market what Pocket Books was for the English-speaking market, as far as Star Trek reference works were concerned, continuing where such prior publishers as "Japan Mix, Inc." and "Dai-X" had increasingly left off. Most notably they published two book series in those years, fully licensed and endorsed by Paramount Pictures, one that comprised illustrated bi-lingual reproductions of internal documents, used by Paramount Studios in the production of the various television productions, and the Star Trek: Official Guide book series, comprising in edited form the various Companion books, beefed out with excerpts from the various Technical Manuals and Encyclopedias. A particularly noteworthy outing in that series was Star Trek: Official Guide 4 - Mechanics (1999), a purely Japanese initiative, that covered the subject of studio models, and which until 2016 did not have an English-language counterpart.

Bunkasha employed an editorial bureau, "Dullmax", that, as a collaborative editorial effort, was responsible for the text of some of their publications, such as the Official Guides 1, 2, and 5.

Though the Japanese traditionally read their books in a right to left orientation – meaning the book is started from a western point-of-view with the back cover – Bunkasha's Star Trek-titles are published conforming to the western reading format.

Star Trek reference works

 * Star Trek: Official Guide 1 - Star Trek The Next Generation – December 1995, updated reprint in June 2002
 * Star Trek: Official Guide 2 - Star Trek Deep Space Nine & Star Trek Voyager – April 1997
 * Star Trek: Official Guide 3 - Official Database – April 1998, reprint in November 2002
 * Star Trek: Official Guide 4 - Mechanics – January 1999
 * Star Trek: Official Guide 5 - The Ultimate – October 2001
 * Star Trek Next Generation Bible - The Ultimate Writer's/Director's Guide – February 2004
 * The Bible II - Star Trek Deep Space Nine & Star Trek Voyager – July 2005

External link

 * Bunkasha.co.jp – official website