When I first learned of Toei Animation, I merely associated them with producing some of the most popular anime TV series such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, Sailor Moon etc. but, as I learned more and more about the history of anime, I slowly realised that Toei Animation are much more significant than I realised. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the fascinating history of Toei Animation.
Toei Animation was originally founded in 1948 as Nihon Douga Eiga, Japanese for Japan Animated Films, and ended up being acquired by Toei Company in 1956 which resulted in the studio being renamed to Toei Animation. Soon after, Toei Animation began work on their first feature-length animated film, The Tale of the White Serpent. The production of the film was a massive undertaking for the then small Japanese animation industry with an estimated 13,590 staff working across two years. The film later ended up seeing a release in America under the name Panda and the Magic Serpent in 1961. While I’m unsure how The Tale of the White Serpent performed in the box office, it’s notable that it inspired a young Hayao Miyazaki to work in the anime industry.
Toei Animation continued to release feature-length animated films such as The Boy Sarutobi Sasuke and Journey to the West but a major shift occurred in 1963 when, only several months after the debut of Astro Boy on TV, Toei Animation released their first anime TV series, Wolf Boy Ken. From then on, they continued to produce more and more anime TV series with originals such as Hustle Punch, Magical Mako and Calimero while also producing anime TV adaptions of manga series such as Devilman, GeGeGe no Kitaro and Sally the Witch.
While they began to focus more heavily on production for television, Toei Animation didn’t stop releasing feature-length animated films. Some particularly notable ones from this time were The Wonderful World of Puss ‘n Boots in 1969 whose main character, the titular Puss ‘n’ Boots, ended up becoming the mascot for Toei Animation and The Little Norse Prince in 1968 which served as the directorial feature film debut of Isao Takahata who later cofounded Studio Ghibli and is a notable individual in his own right.
Interestingly, Toei Animation has also worked with a variety of Western companies to produce animation for American television. This includes a number of very notable series such as the 1981 Spider-Man animated series, the original My Little Pony and a season of The Smurfs. Since the 80s, Toei Animation did hardly any more animation for Western companies but a particularly notable modern example is Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir which has been running since 2015 as of this article.
In the modern day, as I mentioned before, Toei Animation are notable for producing the animated incarnations of many popular series such as Dragon Ball, One Piece and Sailor Moon. However, they continue to produce a wide variety of media such as Digimon, Pretty Cure, Dr. Slump etc. while also making some interesting moves such as producing CGI anime films like the 2013 Space Pirate Captain Harlock and the 2014 Saint Seiya: Legend of Sanctuary.
The long and rich history of Toei Animation is fascinating and I truly hope that we can see more of their back catalogue released in the West someday. Let me know your thoughts on the fascinating history of Toei Animation, what you think about their impact on the anime industry, which have been your favourite works from them, whether you knew before that they produced animation for Western series and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk and amazon.com for all of your needs!