Established in 1967 by a group of former Toei Animation and Mushi Productions employees, Knack Productions (ナック) was an Anime company that was active throughout the 1970s and up until the 1990s. Their first show was Ijiwaru Baasan (Granny Mischief) in 1970, based on a manga by Machiko Hasegawa, best known for Sazae-san (and which had its anime series premiere a year prior). In the late 1980s the studio largely moved away from TV production and focused on OVA, mainly producing softcore Hentai films. In 2008 the company was renamed ICHI Corporation.
Despite a number of notable people in manga and anime working for the company, including Go Nagai, Ken Ishikawa, Masayuki Kojima, and others, Knack developed a dubious reputation for the low quality of its productions, particularly in regard to animation quality (even when compared to their contemporaries in both Japan and America) and with copying the premises of other, more popular shows. In most recent years the studio gained notoriety online for its 1974 anime Chargeman Ken!, which became a Memetic Mutation due to its So Bad, It's Good quality.
Several of their shows (notably the 1984 volleyball dramedy Attacker You!) did very well in the European and Latin American markets, and a few even got official release in Anglophone and Francophone North America. Knack's attempts at the World Masterpiece Theater genre with The Little Prince and Doctor Dolittle were both shown on U.S. TV, the former becoming a nostalgic favorite of early Nickelodeon and also airing on educational channels in Canada. Episodes of Manga Sarutobi Sasuke and Cybot Robotchi were recut into compilation movies and released in the US as Ninja the Wonder Boy and Robby the Rascal respectively. Don Chuck Monogatari, as Le Petit Castor, was a Saturday-morning staple for years in French-speaking Canada. Gekko Kamen also aired across Spanish-speaking North and South America (including on Univision) as El Capitán Centella. Most recently, in 2017, Discotek Media released the entirety of Chargeman Ken! on DVD in North America.
Credits:
- Ijiwaru Baasan (1970–1971)
- Gekko Kamen (1972)
- Astroganger (1972–1973, with Tama Productions)
- Chargeman Ken! (1974, with Tama Productions)
- Dame Oyaji (1974)
- Don Chuck Monogatari (1975–1978; aka Le Petit Castor in French, rerun through the '80s on Radio-Canada)
- Groizer X (1976–1977, created by Go Nagai)
- The Adventures Of The Little Prince (1978–1979; aired on Nickelodeon 1985-1989, and in Canada on TVO)
- Manga Sarutobi Sasuke (dubbed into English as Ninja the Wonder Boy) (1979–1980)
- Sue Cat (1980)
- Manga Mitokomon (1981–1982)
- Cybot Robotchi (dubbed into English as Robby the Rascal) (1982–1983, created by Ken Ishikawa and Go Nagai's Dynamic Planning after Nagai officially severed ties with Toei)
- Hitotsuboshike no Ultra Baasan (1982–1983)
- Psycho Armor Govarian (1983, created by Go Nagai, became very popular in South Korea where it aired as a Mazinger Z spinoff)
- The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle (1984, U.S.-Japan coproduction, not aired in Japan until 1997)
- Attacker You! (1984–1985; aired to great success across Europe during the late '80s and early '90s)
- Oh! Family (1986–1987)
- Manga Nihon Keizai Nyuumon (1987–1988, created by Shotaro Ishinomori)
- Momotaro Densetsu (1989–1990)
- Peach Command: Shin Momotaru Densetsu (1990–1991)
- Kōkō Butō Den Crows (1994)
In addition, Knack produced several pilots that never got sold:
- Toumei Shounen Tantei Akira (circa 1970)
- Super Taromu (while the pilot never sold, a manga based on it were published in several magazines in 1973)
- Okore! Nonkuro
- Nora Inu Pesu no Boken (Adventures of Pesu the Stray Dog) (based on a manga "Hoero Bobo", an anime TV series was eventually made as "Hoero Bunbun", produced by Wako Production in 1980, followed by an anime movie made by Madhouse in 1987)
