Anime columnist Andrew Osmond looks at the history of Japan’s oldest and largest animation studio that began as Nihon Doga before making seminal hits that include ‘Sailor Moon,’ ‘Mazinger Z,’ ‘Candy Candy’ and many others.
Back in 2012, I was in the boardroom of the Tokyo office of Japan’s biggest and longest-lived anime studio, home to , , and a legion of other franchises.In genial, avuncular tones, Toei Animation’s Hidenori Oyama took me through more than half a century of animation history.
He spoke of Disney princesses and monstersof wrestling musclemen and novelty erasers; and of the enduring popularity of big robots and little girls throwing punches.Toei Animation’s story was a journey through the Big Bang expansion of an animation industry, in synch with the phoenix rise of modern Japan.The company that would become Toei Animation started in January 1948 as Nihon Doga.
(“Doga” is an older word for animation, before “anime” caught on.) Burned, irradiated and defeated, postwar Japan was under American occupation.Among the things Japan’s triumphant foe brought over were its cartoons, which most Japanese people had never seen.“Disney’s came out in Japan after the war,” says Oyama.
“Even though America had been Japan’s enemy, we couldn’t believe that such a beautiful work was made before the war – amazing!” In 1956, Nihon Doga was acquired by the Toei studio, which wanted an animation division to complement its live-action films.The first work under the Toei Doga banner, as the outfit was renamed, was a short cartoon, in 1957.At 13 minutes, the monochrome film is overstretched for a short subject, but it’s still delightful, far closer to contemporary Hollywood shorts than to any anime stereotype today.
The following year, 1958, the studio made a feature-length cinema animation - only Japan’s second, after the 1945 propaganda film .Unlike , though, was made in color.“Toei decided to make animated films that could be compared to Disney, that wouldn’t lose out to it in terms of quality,” said Oyama.
“The Toei heads wanted an East Asian version of Disney – to show its films to the people of Japan, and eventually of the world.” Toei Animation’s features began, like Disney’s, in the realm of fairy tales.or was about a snake spirit who turns into a woman and falls for a human man, while cute pandas provide comic support.(In America, the film was called ) One viewer who fell for the snake lady rather than the pandas was a teenage Hayao Miyazaki, who began his own animation career at Toei, working with fellow employee Isao Takahata.
Their Toei opus, (1968) showed the state of Toei art at the time.The Disney influence is obvious, with talking animals, singing crowds and gorgeous character animation by legendary Toei artists Yasuji Mori and Yasuo Otsuka.By then, Toei was also making animation for television.
Its first series was the style made in 1963 to compete with that year’s and () by rival studios.Two of Toei’s most enduring ‘60s TV toon stars were and Both debuted in black and white, followed by umpteen color remakes over the following decades.Kitaro was a monster boy and Sally a magic girl, each using their powers for mischief and good in everyday Japan.
Here’s Sally… “We were extremely confident they would be popular in Japan,” said Oyama.“Before , there was the American live-action comedy (shown on Japanese television), which was about a housewife who happened to be a witch, so we had a basis for that.And was originally a comic by Mitsuteru Yokoyama (also the creator of ), and the comic was extremely popular, so we knew we would have a hit.” also came from a manga.
“It was called ‘Hakaba no Kitaro’ (‘Kitaro of the Graveyard’) written by Shigeru Mizuki,” said Oyama.“It was originally a scary, horror-type comic, about the Japanese monster () world.But the Toei producers thought that if we put some humor in there and remade it so children would find it funny and a scary, then we would have a big hit with kids.
So that’s why we changed the series and the title.It’s the same in the past as it is now – our thought is always, ‘What do children like?’ That’s our main concern.” (The historian Jonathan Clements notes this account is not quite accurate.Mizuki had already modified the “Kitaro” strip in the couple of years before the anime commenced, moving away from ghost stories to depicting Kitaro as an agent of justice, fighting evil spirits.
However, it does seem that the change in title was indeed motivated by the new anime, as the TV sponsors didn’t like a cartoon to have “Graveyard” in the title.) By the 1970s, manga, TV and film anime were integrating.Toei would base an anime on a successful comic, modifying it where necessary to suit the format.Merchandising and licensed products were crucial to Toei’s revenue.
The studio’s biggest anime hits would also beget cinema spinoffs, which increasingly took the place of Toei’s more Disneyesque, less commercially reliable films.One of Toei’s innovations at cinemas were the “ .” These were packages of anime and live-action that played in Japanese cinemas in the spring and summer holidays.“Toei had its own cinema chain,” said Oyama, “which would show the festival.
Pretty much all the children watched them while growing up, and they’re close to the heart of Japanese people.” For instance, the 1978 Toei Festival bundled in Toei’s live-action Japanese TV (insane!) and Shotaro Ishinomori’s space opera together with anime instalments of and plus the 1969 feature is an especially significant Toei anime.Often seen as a precursor to the film gthe light-handed comedy supplied Toei Animation’s mascot character, who still advertises the studio today, though the logo highlights Puss’s hat rather than his footwear. Oyama told me the cat in the hat was actually a challenge to Disney – “It would eat the great American mouse!” he said solemnly.
Then he laughingly admitted he was pulling my leg, which I thought was a shame.The Toei cat, incidentally, is called Pero, in honor of Puss’s French creator, Charles Perrault.He returned in two film sequels in 1972 and 1976.
But by then Toei’s bread and butter were its manga adaptations for TV.“On many occasions, we made the TV series in cooperation with the manga author,” said Oyama.“Often the TV series went on faster than the author could write the manga.
Sometimes the original manga runs out.Many times, we meet with the manga author and say, the series is going in this direction, what do you think? In this way we end up making up a product with their input.” Oyama cited long-term Toei collaborators such as Akira Toriyama (), Eiichiro Oda () and Go Nagai ().“Sometimes we have conflicts,” he admitted, “but we have a really good relationship with the authors of pretty much all our hits.” In the ‘70s, anime moved beyond just being a children’s medium.
This was especially reflected in Toei’s series based on Go Nagai’s manga; not just his robot shows but also the first anime of (above) and .They were about, respectively, a sultry superheroine and a demon superhero (the latter remade far more explicitly in 2018 by the Science Saru studio as ).“Anime became more adult,” confirmed Oyama.
“It began with the weekly magazines that published children’s manga.As time went on, the age of the audience went higher, and the manga writers answered this by making the work more adult-oriented.” Readers’ loyalty to their favorite strips was a factor in the changing audience.“In the case of , people started reading it when they’re very young, and they continued reading it up until their 30s,” says Oyama.
“With now, some of our most faithful readers are 30-year-olds.” (Remember, he was saying this in 2012.) Toei’s 1970s slate included an increasing number of SF titles, including the milestone giant robot show by Go Nagaiits successor (Toei’s first hit in Europe, known in France as ); and two Leiji Matsumoto epics.These were the cosmic train fantasy and the sailing-spaceship saga “At the time, the concept of outer space was something that was extremely popular with children,” says Oyama.“And children like big robots all across the world.” Oyama firmly believed children’s tastes transcend culture, citing the non-SF ‘70s hit a 115-part serial about an indomitable orphan girl.
“It was partly set in Britain, which Japanese people think of as a dream place they want to go to, with a blond [i.e.Western] girl as the main character,” Oyama says.“But when we took to France (one of Toei’s most important foreign markets), we had a huge hit.
Japanese, British and American children may be different in terms of culture and how they think, but they have things in common in terms of what they like.Kids are basically the same, I think.” One generation-crossing Toei title which was popular with children was the ‘80s series known in other territories as This might startle readers who remember the gory 1986 anime movie, which was also made for Toei.However, the TV version was more fantastical, and the bodily explosions brought about by the hero’s pummeling fists were far less bloody.
“In Japan, our audience was extremely wide, from 6 to 30, from primary schoolkids to working adults,” said Oyama.A lighter Toei fight franchise, looking extremely bizarre to Western eyes, was (), which features a bald Adonis in red boxer trunks.Even Oyama found the franchise hard to summarize.
“The series changed as it went along but it’s basically about pro-wrestling… The creator came up with random characters, and the characters fight and that’s the story!” Oyama added, though, that “But what was really popular with were the novelty figure erasers, which Japanese kids loved.It shows how if the product sells, the TV series gets popular, the products sell more and so on… It’s a virtuous circle.was really linked to its merchandise.” (A new iteration began in 2024, made by Production I.G rather than Toei; it’s called and you can find it on Netflix.) Other Toei franchises are better known internationally, but not always in America or Britain.
debuted in 1986; looked at now, it seems like a male counterpart to Toei’s a few years laterIn a team of heroic boy “Saints” don armor and fight battles on behalf of the Goddess Athena.“In areas such as South America and Europe, it was even more popular than,” Oyama noted.Oyama described Toei as operating on gong show principles.
“Most of the time, when a series is initially bought, it runs for 26 episodes at first, a half year run,” says Oyama.“If the ratings are good, the series is renewed, and more episodes are made.And it can be renewed and renewed and renewed.” By 2012, the and franchises had each surpassed 500 episodes; is in the 1100s as of writing.
(above) has similarly passed a thousand episodes if you count all its iterations together.“Every year s story and characters change,” says Oyama, though he described the fundamental premise as a classic magic girl story.“Ordinary girls (around 14 years old) encounter a magical presence that changes them into a magical hero girl called ‘Pretty Cure’ and they fight their enemies.
Rather than magical fights, it’s more physical, with the girls kicking and punching! In a way it’s closer to ; you change your costume and fight an enemy.” Oyama notes that the girls who watch are as young as 3.“They watch it feeling that ‘Maybe could become a Pretty Cure, and fight to protect my family.’ We make so that 3-year-old girls can understand it.When they get to around 8, that’s what we call the graduation age when they stop watching it, because they find it too childish.
So, every year the story and characters change; we’re looking to get new 3-year-old girls as an audience.” The show’s current iteration is , the 22nd series, streaming on Crunchyroll.and were Toei’s first major series to be exported to America in the 1990s.“Just by selling the anime onto the American market, we were able to get back what it cost to make the actual movie, so it was a really good business,” says Oyama.
By 2002, as much as 45% of the company’s profits came from the States, though that had slumped to around 9% in 2012.may be loved by foreign fans, but it wasn’t an export success in American kids’ TV, largely due to its subject.“In terms of censorship, the west is much more strict than Japan, in terms of children’s programming,” Oyama said.
“features a violent gang and bloodshed; censorship means it will not be chosen for children’s viewing.” However, new revenue streams were opening up in Japan, from mobile phone games to theme park attractions.The Huis Ten Bosch park in Japan’s Nagasaki prefecture featured a seaworthy replica ship of the from , though this was discontinued in 2022.Toei was also working with internet and mobile streaming in Japan through the 2000s.
“We were extremely fast in terms of the Japanese market,” Oyama said proudly.Since that interview, Oyama appears to have moved on from Toei Animation.One Toei series that wasn’t mentioned above was the 1990s basketball show , a hit in China and South Korea.
Decades later, it inspired the 2022 blockbuster , which Toei co-produced with DandeLion Animation.Franchises such as and are still going strong, with becoming a staggering cinema hit in 2022, and ending only this February on TV.In addition, I’d like to note that in 2023, Toei finally made a sinister film, called , below.
As of writing, Toei’s upcoming releases include , a CG film with story and design contributions from designer Naoto Oshima, working with Jospeh Chou.The film will be directed by America’s David N.Weiss, whose past script credits range from to .
Almost 70 years on from “Little Kitty’s Graffiti” and , Toei still looks beyond Japan, seeking to bring its animation to the world.And in a stop-press postscript, this week (August 26) Toei announced it was establishing a brand new studio premises in Osaka, Japan’s second biggest city.Andrew Osmond is a British author and journalist, specialising in animation and fantasy media.
His email is [email protected].
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