The company was founded as Asahi Kogaku Goshi Kaisha in November 1919 by Kumao Kajiwara, at a shop in the Toshima suburb of Tokyo, and began producing spectacle lenses (which it still manufactures). In 1938 it changed its name to Asahi Optical Co., Ltd. (旭光学工業株式会社 Asahi Kōgaku Kōgyō Kabushiki-gaisha), and by this time it was also manufacturing camera/cine lenses. The corporation is best known for its "Pentax" brand cameras, starting with the pivotal "Asahi Pentax" single-lens reflex camera of 1957, which followed Asahi's first series of cameras, the Asahiflex of 1952. The success of the Pentax series was such that the business eventually renamed itself "Pentax Corporation" after the product. Although the corporation ultimately merged into Hoya Corporation, it eventually was purchased by Ri.