Toei Animation
Toei Animation Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio primarily controlled by its namesake Toei Company. It was originally founded on January 23, 1948, as Japan Animated Films by Kenzō Masaoka and Sanae Yamamoto.
The studio is known for producing numerous series, including the Sally the Witch series, the GeGeGe no Kitarō series, Mazinger Z, Galaxy Express 999, the Cutie Honey series, the Dr. Slump series, the Dragon Ball series, the Saint Seiya series, the Sailor Moon series, Slam Dunk, the Digimon series, the One Piece series, Magical Doremi, Toriko, World Trigger and the Pretty Cure series, among others. Aside from animation production, the company handles character licensing and overseas distribution and sales of its titles through its wholly-owned international subsidiaries.
Toei Animation is headquartered in Nakano, Tokyo with its studios in Higashiōizumi, Nerima, Tokyo which also houses the. Toei also has an overseas studio in the Philippines known as Toei Animation Phils.
Pero, the protagonist of the studio's 1969 film adaptation of Puss in Boots, serves as its mascot.
History
Early history
The studio was founded by animators Kenzō Masaoka and Sanae Yamamoto in 1948 as Japan Animated Films often shortened to. In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was renamed Toei Animation Co., Ltd.. In 1998, the Japanese name was renamed to match with the English name. It has created a number of TV series and movies and adapted Japanese comics as animated series, many popular worldwide. Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Yasuji Mori, Leiji Matsumoto and Yōichi Kotabe have worked with the company. Toei was a shareholder in the Japanese anime satellite television network Animax with other anime studios and production companies, such as Sunrise, TMS Entertainment and Nihon Ad Systems Inc.Although the Toei Company usually contracts Toei Animation to handle its animation internally for some of their works, they occasionally hire other companies to provide animation; although the Toei Company produced the Robot Romance Trilogy, Sunrise provided the animation. Toei Company would also enlist the help of other studios such as hiring Academy Productions to produce the animation for Space Emperor God Sigma, rather than use their own studio. Since 1962, Toei Animation uses its own production offices rather than using Toei's television division.
Toei Animation's anime which have won the Animage Anime Grand Prix award are Galaxy Express 999 in 1981, Saint Seiya in 1987 and Sailor Moon in 1992. In addition to producing anime for release in Japan, Toei Animation began providing animation for American films and television series during the 1960s and particularly during the 1980s.
Later history and ransomware attack
In October 2021, Toei Animation announced that they had signed a strategic partnership with the South Korean entertainment conglomerate CJ ENM.On March 6, 2022, an incident occurred in which an unauthorized third party attempted to hack Toei Animation's network, which resulted in the company's online store and internal systems becoming temporarily suspended. The company investigated the incident and stated that the hack would affect the broadcast schedules of several anime series, including One Piece. In addition, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero was also rescheduled to June 11, 2022, due to the hack. On April 6, 2022, Toei Animation announced that it would resume broadcasting the anime series, including One Piece. The following day, the Japanese public broadcaster NHK reported that the hack was caused by a targeted ransomware attack.
On June 5, 2025, the company announced a new animation production label known as Eterna Animation which would focus on original works with the label's first work, Foxing announced at the same time with the short being released during 2026.
On August 26 of that year, the company announced the establishment of another studio in Osaka. The "Osaka Studio" would act as its second domestic animation studio further expanding Toei Animation's production work as well as recruiting artists from the Kansai region and build ties with the local community. According to Toei Animation board member and head of production Kiichiro Yamada, he states that the labor shortage in the Japanese animation industry is a serious issue and that the studio feels that it has an urgency to recruit creators and open studios across other regions in Japan rather than having to deal with the Tokyo studio.
Subsidiaries
Currently in production
TV animation
NOTE: A few of these productions have no involvement by Toei Animation, but rather Toei Company financing other animation studios instead to produce them.1960–69
1970–79
1980–89
1990–99
2000–09
2010–19
2020–present
Television films and specials
Theatrical films
Original video animation and original net animation
Video game animation
Video game development
Dubbing
Animated productions by foreign studios dubbed in Japanese by Toei are The Mystery of the Third Planet ; Les Maîtres du temps, Alice's Birthday and Becca's Bunch.Foreign production history
Toei has been commissioned to provide animation by Japanese and American studios such as Sunbow Entertainment, Marvel Productions, Hanna-Barbera, DIC Entertainment, Rankin/Bass Productions and World Events Productions. In the 60's, they primarily worked with Rankin/Bass, but beginning in the 80's, they worked with Marvel Productions and their list of clients grew, until the end of the decade. Toei didn't provide much outsourced animation work in the 90's and since the 2000s has only rarely worked with other companies outside Japan.| Production | Year |
| The Wacky World of Mother Goose | 1967 |
| The Mouse on the Mayflower | 1968 |
| The World of Strawberry Shortcake | 1980 |
| The Pink Panther in: Pink at First Sight | 1981 |
| Spider-Man | 1981 |
| Strawberry Shortcake: Pets on Parade | 1982 |
| Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends | 1982 |
| The Charmkins | 1983 |
| G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero | 1983–1986 |
| Inspector Gadget | 1983 |
| Dungeons and Dragons | 1983–1985 |
| My Little Pony | 1984–1985 |
| Gallavants | 1984 |
| The Transformers | 1984–1987 |
| Robo Force: The Revenge of Nazgar | 1984 |
| Turbo Teen | 1984 |
| Snorks | 1984 |
| Jim Henson's Muppet Babies | 1984–1987 |
| Jim Henson's Little Muppet Monsters | 1985 |
| Super Sunday | 1985–1986 |
| Inhumanoids | 1985 spin-off TV series |
| Jem | 1985–1988 spin-off TV series |
| Voltron Season 3 | 1985 |
| The Transformers: The Movie | 1986 |
| Voltron: Fleet of Doom | 1986 |
| Defenders of the Earth | 1986–1987 |
| The Adventures of the American Rabbit | 1986 |
| My Little Pony: The Movie | 1986 |
| My Little Pony 'n Friends | 1986–1987 |
| The Glo Friends | 1986–1987 |
| The Jetsons | 1987 |
| Blondie and Dagwood | 1987 |
| G.I. Joe: The Movie | 1987 |
| Sky Commanders | 1987 |
| The Flintstone Kids | 1987 |
| The Smurfs | 1987–1988 |
| Foofur | 1987 |
| Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater | 1987 |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | 1987–1989 |
| The New Archies | 1987 |
| Police Academy | 1988–1989 |
| Dennis the Menace | 1988 |
| The Real Ghostbusters | 1988 |
| Superman | 1988 |
| X-Men: Pryde of the X-Men | 1989 |
| Starship Troopers: Invasion | 2012 |
| Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir | 2015–2024 |
| Miraculous Stellar Force | 2027 |
Controversies
Fair use disputes
Between 2008 and 2018, Toei Animation had copyright claimed TeamFourStar's parody series, DragonBall Z Abridged. TFS stated that the parody series is protected under fair use.On December 7, 2021, Toei Animation copyright claimed over 150 videos by YouTuber Totally Not Mark, real name Mark Fitzpatrick. He uploaded a video addressing the issue, claiming that they were protected under fair use, and that nine of the videos do not include any Toei footage. He also outlined the appeal process on YouTube, and estimated having the videos reinstated could take over 37 years. He then goes on to announce that he would not be supporting new Toei releases until the issue had been resolved, and also called for a boycott on the upcoming Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero film. The dispute sparked discussion on YouTube on the vulnerability of creators against the copyright system and lack of fair use laws in Japan, with YouTubers such as PewDiePie and The Anime Man speaking out on the issue.
On January 26, 2022, Fitzpatrick had his videos reinstated after negotiations with YouTube.