Toei Company, Ltd.

Toei Company, Ltd., leading Japanese motion-picture studio, the films of which are usually dramas and thrillers for children and rural audiences.

Toei was formed in 1951 from the Tōyoko and Ōizumi Studios and the Tokyo Motion Picture Distribution Company. By 1954 it was producing two full-length features a week by eliminating set changes and concentrating on action pictures. It was the first Japanese studio to set up a definite program for making wide-screen films and lent exhibitors the money to convert to wide-screen facilities. In the 1950s Toei entered television broadcasting, and the studio’s financial acuity preserved it during decades of declining attendance at theaters. From the 1980s, Toei Animation, its animation division, produced a string of hits, including the Voltron, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball franchises, and established itself as Japan’s largest distributor of anime.