Toei Animation

• 1. Introduction

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  Toei Animation traces its origin to the 23rd of January 1948, when animators Kenzō Masaoka and Sanae Yamamoto founded a company called Japan Animated Films. Toei Company purchased that studio in 1956 and renamed it. In 1998, the Japanese name was updated to match the English one. What those two founders set in motion eventually produced One Piece, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, Digimon, and Pretty Cure. Pero, the hero cat from the studio's 1969 Puss in Boots film, serves as Toei Animation's official mascot. Hayao Miyazaki worked at the studio early in his career. So did Isao Takahata. In 2022, a ransomware attack froze the studio's internal systems and scrambled broadcast schedules across Japan. How did a two-person animation company, founded in postwar Tokyo, build one of the deepest animation catalogues in the world? And what does its story reveal about the economics and vulnerabilities of modern anime production?

• 2. From Fairytales to Features

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  Kitty's Graffiti, a short directed by Taiji Yabushita and Yasuji Mori, was Toei Animation's inaugural production. The studio's first theatrical feature followed: The White Snake Enchantress, running 79 minutes and adapted from the Chinese tale Legend of the White Snake. Toei then built a pattern of adapting world literature and folk stories into features. Taiji Yabushita directed Arabian Nights: The Adventures of Sinbad, adapted from The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. He also directed Alakazam the Great, adapted from Wu Cheng'en's novel Journey to the West. Yasuji Mori and Hayao Miyazaki both worked on Fujimaru of the Wind during this period. The 1968 feature The Great Adventure of Horus, Prince of the Sun, running 82 minutes, served as the directorial debut of Isao Takahata. Kimio Yabuki directed Puss in Boots in 1969, an 80-minute feature adapted from the Charles Perrault fairy tale. While these theatrical films were reaching cinemas, Toei had already launched its first television series, Ookami Shonen Ken, on NET.

• 3. The Television Turn

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  Ookami Shonen Ken, directed by Sadao Tsukioka on NET, ran 86 episodes and marked Toei's grand debut in TV animation. The studio's television output grew quickly through the 1960s. Toei co-produced The King Kong Show with Rankin/Bass Productions, and it aired on the American Broadcasting Company. That series became the first anime-based production made in Japan for an American company. A second Rankin/Bass co-production, The Smokey Bear Show, directed by Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass, also aired on ABC. From the 1960s onward and particularly during the 1980s, Toei Animation provided animation for American films and television series. Sally the Witch ran 109 episodes on NET and was the first magical girl anime to air. Episodes 1 through 17 were filmed in black-and-white; the remaining 92 were filmed in color. Since 1962, Toei Animation has operated its own production offices, independent of Toei Company's television division. The studio entered the super-robot genre in the 1970s with Mazinger Z, running 92 episodes on Fuji TV. Galaxy Express 999, from the world of Leiji Matsumoto, ran 113 episodes on the same network. His Space Pirate Captain Harlock also ran during the same era, directed by Rintaro and spanning 42 episodes. Galaxy Express 999 won the Animage Anime Grand Prix in 1981, the first of three such prizes Toei would claim in that span.

• 4. The Franchise Machines

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  Dr. Slump, Toei's adaptation of Akira Toriyama's manga, ran 243 episodes on Fuji TV. Dragon Ball, also from Toriyama's manga and directed by Daisuke Nishio and Minoru Okazaki, ran 153 episodes on the same network. Dragon Ball Z extended that story by another 291 episodes under Daisuke Nishio. Saint Seiya, directed by Yasuhito Kikuchi and running 114 episodes on TV Asahi, won the Animage Anime Grand Prix in 1987. Sailor Moon, also on TV Asahi, won the same award in 1992. Across five seasons, directors including Junichi Sato and Kunihiko Ikuhara took turns leading the series. Slam Dunk ran 101 episodes. One Piece launched on Fuji TV in 1999 and was still in production in the 2020s, accumulating more than 1,100 episodes. The Pretty Cure franchise began in 2004 with Futari wa Precure, directed by Daisuke Nishio, and has since generated more than 1,000 episodes across more than 20 series. Digimon Adventure, directed by Hiroyuki Kakudō, launched on Fuji TV in 1999 and gave rise to a franchise with sequels still being made in the 2020s. Toei Animation Europe, based in Paris, co-produced Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir with several international partners, accumulating 147 episodes. The studio's extensive franchise commitments would make any sustained disruption consequential, as became clear during a cyberattack early in 2022.

• 5. The 2022 Ransomware Attack

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  On the 6th of March 2022, an unauthorized third party attempted to breach Toei Animation's computer network. The intrusion forced the studio to suspend its online store and internal systems. Several anime broadcasts were disrupted, including One Piece. Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, which had been scheduled for an earlier release, was postponed to the 11th of June 2022. On the 6th of April 2022, Toei announced that broadcasting would resume. The following day, NHK, Japan's public broadcaster, confirmed the incident had been caused by a targeted ransomware attack. The attack and its immediate aftermath unfolded over about a month, from the March 6 breach to the April 6 resumption announcement. Toei had signed a strategic partnership with the South Korean entertainment conglomerate CJ ENM in October 2021, only months before the intrusion. Recovery from the broadcast disruptions came quickly. A separate challenge, the labor shortage spreading across the Japanese animation industry, would demand a more deliberate response from the studio.

• 6. Expansion and Original Work

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  On the 5th of June 2025, Toei Animation announced Eterna Animation, a new production label dedicated to original works. Its first announced title was Foxing, a short scheduled for release during 2026. Less than three months later, on the 26th of August 2025, the company announced the establishment of a studio in Osaka. Board member Kiichiro Yamada explained the reasoning: the labor shortage in the Japanese animation industry had become a serious issue. The studio felt urgency to recruit creators and open facilities in other regions of Japan, rather than concentrating all production in Tokyo. The Osaka facility would serve as Toei Animation's second domestic studio and was intended to build relationships with the Kansai regional creative community. On the 21st of April 2026, Toei announced a subsidiary called Toei Games, focused on publishing games not based on the studio's existing intellectual properties. The studio's distribution network includes subsidiaries in Los Angeles, Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai, and the Philippines. The Hong Kong subsidiary, established as a joint venture with Animation International Limited in 1997, became wholly owned in 2009.