{"id":65579,"date":"2026-04-22T14:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:33:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=65579"},"modified":"2026-04-22T14:33:19","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T05:33:19","slug":"clannad-air-developer-visual-arts-has-fully-maintained-its-creative-autonomy-three-years-following-tencent-acquisition-says-ceo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/clannad-air-developer-visual-arts-has-fully-maintained-its-creative-autonomy-three-years-following-tencent-acquisition-says-ceo\/","title":{"rendered":"Clannad, Air developer\u00a0Visual\u00a0Arts\u00a0has fully\u00a0maintained\u00a0its\u00a0creative\u00a0autonomy\u00a0three years\u00a0following Tencent acquisition, says CEO\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Japanese publisher and game developer&nbsp;<strong>Visual Arts<\/strong>, known for&nbsp;acclaimed&nbsp;visual novel titles like&nbsp;Clannad, Air and Canon, became a&nbsp;wholly&nbsp;owned&nbsp;subsidiary of Chinese entertainment&nbsp;and gaming giant&nbsp;Tencent back in&nbsp;July&nbsp;2023.&nbsp;With almost three years having passed since the acquisition, Visual Arts&nbsp;CEO&nbsp;and president Genki&nbsp;Tenkumo&nbsp;(who is also the&nbsp;producer of&nbsp;Key&nbsp;titles&nbsp;Summer Pockets and&nbsp;anemoi&nbsp;under the pseudonym&nbsp;Touya&nbsp;Okano), talked about what has changed in a new interview with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/game.watch.impress.co.jp\/docs\/feature\/2099937.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">GameWatch<\/a>.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tenkumo&nbsp;took on the role of Visual&nbsp;Arts\u2019s&nbsp;CEO precisely at the time of&nbsp;the Tencent&nbsp;acquisition, chosen as a successor by&nbsp;the&nbsp;retired president Takahiro Baba.&nbsp;He says that&nbsp;up to this day,&nbsp;Visual Arts has completely&nbsp;maintained&nbsp;its autonomy when it comes to game production, with Tencent never interfering with the studios\u2019 creative work. The only changes were the introduction of accounting and management systems that meet global standards. Additionally,&nbsp;Tenkumo&nbsp;feels the company\u2019s management has grown more stable.&nbsp;He considers that the&nbsp;original&nbsp;objective&nbsp;of former president Baba,&nbsp;who&nbsp;initiated&nbsp;the deal&nbsp;with Tencent&nbsp;in the first place,&nbsp;has been fully achieved.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1515\" height=\"851\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1515px) 100vw, 1515px\" src=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260422-65579-001jpg.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-65582\" srcset=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260422-65579-001jpg.jpg 1515w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260422-65579-001jpg-380x213.jpg 380w, https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/20260422-65579-001jpg-768x431.jpg 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>As for what this&nbsp;objective&nbsp;was&nbsp;\u2013&nbsp;being a private company where Baba held 100% of shares, the former president feared Visual Arts was at risk of disappearing as a company if anything were to happen to him&nbsp;(according to a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/visual-arts.jp\/blog-2023-july\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">blog&nbsp;post<\/a>&nbsp;penned by him in 2023).&nbsp;He had turned 63 that year, and despite being healthy, felt it was&nbsp;urgently&nbsp;necessary to secure not only Visual&nbsp;Arts\u2019s&nbsp;future, but to preserve the rights to&nbsp;all of&nbsp;its games and music.&nbsp;However, as the company&nbsp;was not in a position to&nbsp;aim for public listing at a time&nbsp;(which was another potential solution to the issue), Baba decided to sell it to a prospective buyer.&nbsp;The decision to transfer shares to Tencent came after a long selection process and agreement from Visual Arts staff.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Baba\u00a0had emphasized\u00a0at the time that \u201cVisual Arts would remain Visual Arts\u201d no matter what,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0reassuring to see\u00a0new statements from\u00a0Tenkumo\u00a0affirm this is still the case. On a related note,\u00a0Visual Arts is set to release\u00a0anemoi, its first full-priced\u00a0visual novel in over seven years, on April 24.\u00a0While this is going to be a Japan-only launch, the title is also set to get an international Steam release\u00a0in the near future. Additionally, the\u00a0company recently\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/air-and-clannad-publisher-visual-arts-launches-new-visual-novel-brand-visual-arts-scripts-with-three-new-titles-currently-in-production\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced the launch of a brand new development label\u00a0Visual Arts Scripts<\/a>, with three new titles already announced, so\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0much to look forward to from the developer.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Related:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/keys-new-visual-novel-anemoi-will-be-at-least-18gb-and-take-up-two-discs-to-account-for-extra-content-much-to-fans-delight\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Key\u2019s new visual novel anemoi will be at least 18GB and take up two discs&nbsp;to account for extra content, much to fans\u2019 delight<\/strong><\/a>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Visual Arts became a\u00a0wholly\u00a0owned\u00a0subsidiary of Chinese entertainment\u00a0and gaming giant\u00a0Tencent back in\u00a0July\u00a02023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":65581,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-65579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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Currently devoted to growing Automaton West to the size of its Japanese sister-site, while making sure to keep news concise and developer stories deep and stimulating.","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/author\/amber-vjestica\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65579"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65583,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65579\/revisions\/65583"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}