The story
History
Early history
The studio was founded by animators Kenzō Masaoka and Sanae Yamamoto in 1948 as Nihon Dōga Eiga (日本動画映画, Nihon Dōga Eiga) often shortened to Nichidō Eiga (日動映画). In 1956, Toei purchased the studio and it was renamed Toei Animation Co., Ltd. (東映動画株式会社, Tōei Dōga Kabushiki-gaisha; "dōga" is Japanese for "video", and in some extent "animation"). 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 its works, it occasionally hire other companies to provide animation; although the Toei Company produced the Robot Romance Trilogy, Sunrise (then known as Nippon 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 its 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 it 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.
On September 8, 2026, it was reported that the company would enter into a strategic partnership with Lionsgate to release its films in the US, beginning with Monkey Quest in 2027. Lionsgate will also get first-look for new co-productions under the deal.
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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 (DreamWorks Animation). In the 60's, it primarily worked with Rankin/Bass, but beginning in the 80's, it worked with Marvel Productions and its 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.
From Wikipedia’s article on Toei Animation, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4