IR News｜News

 Okayama, Japan, September 3, 2001 - Benesse Corporation and Namco Ltd. announced the scheduled opening of a new indoor amusement park for small children and their families at the Marui Family Mizonokuchi Shopping Center in Kanagawa prefecture, a bedroom suburb of Tokyo, on October 17, 2001. Combining Benesse's strengths in designing educational tools for preschool children and Namco's long experience in developing amusement parks, entertainment facilities and games, the park has been jointly developed by the two companies to attract families spanning three generations, involving children aged 6 and younger, their parents and their grandparents.

The amusement theme park, named SHIMA-SHIMA TOWN, is built around an animated character, SHIMA-JIRO(*1), a fun-loving tigerlike creature who acts as guide and imaginary friend in Benesse's KODOMO CHALLENGE correspondence courses(*2) for preschool children. SHIMA-SHIMA TOWN offers children various educational experiences and opportunities to learn age-appropriate communication skills while playing in the imaginary world of SHIMA-JIRO and his family and friends. The 4100-square-foot park includes such amusement areas as SHIMA-JIRO's house, SHIMA- SHIMA shopping center, a Challenge Park stocked with toys and fun games, a Challenge Forest for playing expedition games, as well as a souvenir shop. Admission to the park is 400 yen per child for the first half-hour and 200 yen for each additional 15 minutes, and 200 yen for an accompanying adult for the first half-hour and 100 yen for each additional 15 minutes.

The SHIMA-SHIMA TOWN park is the first of its kind in Japan to feature the character of SHIMA-JIRO. Benesse and Namco plan to study the feasibility of opening similar parks in other areas of Japan.


NOTES:

1. SHIMA-JIRO is a tigerlike creature conceived by Benesse as a principal character in its preschool correspondence courses, KODOMO CHALLENGE, and has achieved wide recognition among preschool children. Since becoming into the main character of an animated TV series, called SHIMA-SHIMA Tiger SHIMA-JIRO in 1993, it has been one of the most popular animated characters among preschool children. "SHIMA" means stripes in Japanese, and the nickname SHIMA-JIRO denotes a tigerlike character with stripes. The TV show is now broadcast by 31 networks in Japan.

2. KODOMO (Kids) CHALLENGE, which was introduced by Benesse in 1988 as part of the company's SHINKENZEMI correspondence courses, consists of five preschool correspondence courses designed for ages 1 through 6. Subscribers totaled 1.49 million as of April 2001. The courses provide instructional materials tailored to different stages of development, helping children learn social skills and stimulating their curiosity as they play with a character named SHIMA-JIRO, who acts as guide and friend in introducing the educational materials.

About Namco
With over 40 years in the amusement business, Namco Limited (TSE 9752) is a leader in the research and development, production and sales of coin-operated game machines, home video game software and computer graphics, as well as amusement facility operations.