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Fusajiro Yamauchi (JP) (November 22, 1859 - January 1, 1940), originally born as Fusajirō Fukui, was the Japanese founder of Nintendo in 1889. He had a wife and two daughters, and lived in Kyoto, Japan. His great-grandchild, Hiroshi Yamauchi, took over the company in 1949.
History[]
Fusajiro Fukui was born on November 22, 1859. After an arranged marriage with one of the daughters of Naoshichi Yamauchi, who owned a lime wholesaling company "Haigan", Fusajiro was adopted into the Yamauchi family as it had no male heir to inherit the company. As such, he adopted the surname "Yamauchi". Then in 1885, he inherited the Haigan company, changed its company name to "Haiko Honten", and started selling cement as well as lime.
During the Meiji era, the Japanese government relaxed the ban on manufacturing Japanese playing cards such as Hanafuda, prompting manufacturers to start selling such cards publicly. As a skilled craftsman, Fusajiro decided to capitalize on this boom, and on September 23, 1889, he established "Yamauchi Fusajiro Shoten" also known as "Yamauchi Nintendo" or simply "Nintendo", a company that would craft high-quality handmade Hanafuda cards. Nintendo's hanafuda were popular enough that the company expanded into manufacturing other types of Japanese playing cards.
In 1902, Fusajiro would also manufacture western playing cards (known in Japan as toranpu or trump cards), the first to be manufactured locally in Japan. Also during the same year, in an effort to discourage the public from gambling using playing cards (the act of gambling still being illegal), the Japanese government imposed taxes on all types of playing cards, including hanafuda. Because of this, many small-time card manufacturers who could not keep up with paying the tax went out of business. It is believed that Nintendo's sale of western playing cards helped the company stay afloat.
In 1905, Fusajiro, who didn't have a son, arranged a marriage between Sekiryo Kaneda, an employee who started working at Nintendo at the beginning of the decade, and Tei Yamauchi, one of his two daughters. Sekiryo was slated to inherit two of Fusajiro's companies.
In 1907, Fusajiro had an idea of a distribution system that would let his business, which was still limited to the Kyoto and Osaka regions, expand nationwide. Fusajiro made a deal with Kichibee Murai ("The Tobacco King") to sell Nintendo playing cards to all tobacco stores all over Japan.
Then in 1918, Fusajiro retired from the cement and lime business, and let his adoptive son Sekiryo take over Haiko Honten. Fusajiro would continue to run Nintendo until 1929, when he let Sekiryo take over this company as well. By the time Fusajiro retired, Nintendo had become the leading playing card company in Japan.
In January 1940, Fusajiro passed away as a result of a stroke.