I’ve been looking at the history of a variety of anime studios such as Toei Animation, Sunrise, Studio 4°C etc. but I’ve only briefly mentioned one of the most important, TMS Entertainment. Considering their body of work, their history and impact, I thought it worthwhile to take a look at TMS Entertainment, what anime/animation they’ve contributed to and to explain why they’re noteworthy even among anime studios.
Starting with a look at the history of the company, TMS Entertainment (Tokyo Movie Shinsha) first began producing animated works in 1964 under the name Tokyo Movie. Their first anime series was an adaptation of an Osamu Tezuka manga called Big X and they soon followed this up with some shows such as Obake no Q-Tarō, Star of the Giants and the 1969 Moomin series. However, a particularly notable series of theirs began airing in 1971 and was simply called Lupin III. While originally a failure that ended up getting cancelled, reruns of the series proved popular and, in 1977, the incredibly popular Lupin III Part 2 began airing, proving to be a big success that has developed into a long-running franchise of TV series, films, OVAs, TV specials etc. that continue to this day.
Besides that, it’s also worth noting their theatrical films that they were making at the time. While many were spin-offs of their successful TV series such as Star of the Giants, a couple of notable shorts that were released were the two Panda! Go, Panda! films which involved Isao Takahata and Hayao Miyazaki who would later found Studio Ghibli. They also produced Space Adventure Cobra: The Movie and the first anime adaptation of the Golgo 13 manga, Golgo 13: The Professional.
A couple of particularly noteworthy TMS Entertainment anime that were produced in the late 1980s were Anpanman and Akira. Anpanman is a TV anime that adapts the very popular picture books of the same name and has been airing in Japan to this day, as of this article, since 1988 with the franchise itself worth billions of dollars and being one of the most valuable franchises of all time! Akira, a feature film adaptation of the manga of the same name, was also released in 1988 and ended up being an international hit and, alongside its critical acclaim, is often cited as one of the anime that helped to popularise anime in the West.
Having already seen so much success, it’s fascinating to see that TMS Entertainment ended up becoming responsible for another major TV anime hit, this being Detective Conan. One of the best-selling manga of all time, the anime adaptation has seen a similar level of success with the anime airing consistently since 1996, adaptations of the spin-off manga, OVAs and the theatrical films seeing a box office gross of over $1 billion! Even with all of these successes, TMS Entertainment continues to release new anime TV series such as Megalobox, Dr. Stone, Yowamushi Pedal etc.
The last thing I want to touch upon is TMS Entertainment’s contribution to Western animation. Since the 1980s, TMS Entertainment has worked with a variety of Western companies in order to produce animation with some particularly notable examples being the first season of Inspector Gadget, Rainbow Brite, part of the first season of DuckTales, the opening and some episodes of Batman: The Animated Series as well as several DC animated films. They don’t do anywhere near as much Western animation these days but their contributions should certainly not be ignored.
Let me know your thoughts on TMS Entertainment, whether you agree with me that they’re one of the most important anime studios, which works of theirs you’ve seen, whether you were aware of their contributions to Western animation 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!