stylized as 8ing, is a Japanese video game developer and publisher. It formerly existed as two separate companies: Eighting and It is known for its shoot 'em upss and its licensed fighting games.

Eighting's name comes from nanakorobi yaoki, a Japanese proverb that says "fall down seven times and get up eight times." Raizing was derived from raijingu (rising) and Raijin, the Japanese god of lightning.

History

In March 1993, former Compile staff established Raizing and Eighting to create arcade games. Raizing handled game development while Eighting did sales and distribution. Raizing included a handful of employees who worked on Musha Aleste, including Yuichi Toyama, Kazuyuki Nakashima, and Kenichi Yokoo.

Their first game, Mahou Daisakusen/Sorcer Striker, was released in May 1993. The developers were advised by Toaplan. When Toaplan closed, some staff joined Raizing. Others went on to join Cave, Gazelle, and Takumi Corporation, each of which continued Toaplan's reputation for difficult shooting games. Raizing also continued to use arcade hardware based on Toaplan's units. Composer Manabu Namiki joined the company in 1995, working on Battle Garegga, Armed Police Batrider, Terra Diver, Ghoul Panic, Dimahoo, and others before leaving in 2000. He continued to work with Eighting on fighting games, such as the Bleach: Heat the Soul series.

In October 2000, the Raizing division was incorporated into Eighting. In November 2005, Eighting filed for a public listing on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market.

With the merger of Eighting and Raizing, the combined company began to focus on distributing mobile content for NTT Docomo’s i-mode system, Vodafone live!, and KDDI's EZweb service. It also developed a reputation for fighting games based on anime franchises, including Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Zatch Bell, and InuYasha.

In 2008, Eighting opened a new subsidiary in Okinawa. It also opened a studio in Sapporo in 2010. By 2011, the company had a department dedicated to social network games for mobile devices.

In 2016, Eighting was acquired by COLOPL. Eighting has also partnered with Nintendo on Animal Crossing: New Leaf - Welcome amiibo, Kirby Star Allies, and Pikmin 3 Deluxe, and Pikmin 4.

List of games developed

List of games developed as Raizing

List of games developed as Eighting

Notes

References

External links

• R8ZING: A Raizing/Eighting Shooter Tribute

• Interview with Yuichi Toyama and Kenichi Yokoo from Shooting Gameside #1 Magazine