Toei Animation

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Formerly called Toei Douga until 1998. Toei Animation is the Anime department of the Toei Company[1] and one of the oldest (it can trace its roots back to 1948) and largest animation companies. Toei is responsible for producing a large number of popular and Essential Anime, including Mazinger Z, Devilman, Fist of the North Star, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Digimon, and One Piece. In other words, it was responsible for defining the Humongous Mecha, Space Opera, Shonen, and Magical Girl genres as we know them today.

When the studio started in 1956, the studio did mostly Disney like art films, but based around native Japanese artwork and some stuff for Rankin Bass. Some people like Isao Takahata (the director of Grave of the Fireflies), Yoichi Kotabe (mostly known for doing most of Nintendo's 2D artwork), Yasuo Otsuka and Hayao Miyazaki worked at Toei at this time. However due to the staff members wanting more money and how the studio was going, many staff members left for other studios.

They've also done a bit of work on American cartoons, but those are few and far between after the 1980s ended. They, along with TMS, Sunrise and Sony also had a hand in Animax.

See also: Sei Young and Dai Won, two Korean studios that worked with Toei in the late 70's to mid 80's.

Major Anime Productions


Western Animation work


Other works (largely through their studio in the Philippines) include


Tropes associated with Toei:

  • All CGI Cartoon: A couple, Two of them handled in China (One by Imagi Animation Studios and one in Taiwan by Wang (through CGCG)).
  • Animation Bump: Happens in any (if not all) of their movies.
  • Cash Cow Franchise: IN SPADES, but One Piece, Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Transformers, Digimon and Pretty Cure are the most prominent.
  • Conspicuous CG: Has been becoming more obvious since 1999 or so.
  • Doing It for the Art: The films Toei did during 1958 to 1972.
  • Filler: Very often, especially in Dragon Ball Z.
  • Limited Animation: Fairly common, due to producing long running series (and relatively shorter series during those long runners). The majority of their American projects too.
  • Long Runners: Most of the series mentioned either had several incarnations or were continuously going on.
  • Mascot: Pero from the company's adaptation of Puss in Boots is their official mascot.
  • No Export for You: In recent years, Toei have been quite reluctant to licence their work for foreign translation or rerelease, with Sailor Moon having being hit particularly hard by this for quite a while. After the fate that befell One Piece, you can't really blame them.
  • Off-Model: A frequent victim of this trope due to the fact that they end up producing incredibly long running series, mostly at the same time as one another, rotating each around various animation teams of wildy varying quality.
  1. ↑ which also has a tokusatsu studio responsible for the Super Sentai (by which they have half-ownership of Power Rangers franchise) and Kamen Rider franchises among other departments, but that's another story.
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