Opening for business in
Osaka in February of
1982,
General Products was the first store in
Japan to specialize in
Science Fiction related
merchandise.
The founders of General Products were all core members of the
Daicon 3 convention committee. These same people (among the most famous being
Hideaki Anno) would go on to become the basis of
Daicon Film as well.
The company became one of the
seminal garage kit manufacturers, founding the
Wonder Festival, which played a important role in increasing the number of garage kit fans in Japan (and the rest of the world), as well as being among the first to develop
resin and
soft vinyl garage kits.
General Products was eventually merged with
Gainax (in the August of
1990), with whom it had been engaged for quite a while in such enterprises as
computer game development and sales.