Toei Animation is a Japanese animation studio that worked on Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned, The Monster of Frankenstein, "Pryde of the X-Men" and Marvel Disk Wars: The Avengers. It is currently owned by Toei Co., Ltd.
The company has worked on other shows such as Dragon Ball, it's sequels and films, Sailor Moon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, G.I. Joe, and Transformers.
History[]
The company was founded in 1949 as Japan Animated Films. Toei purchased the studio in 1956 and it ws reincorporated under its current name. Over the years, the studio has created a large number of TV series, and movies, and adapted many Japanese comics by renowned authors to animated series, many popular worldwide.
Toei Animation was known as Toei Doga, with “dōga” being the native Japanese word for animation. At the time the company's formal English name was indeed "Toei Animation Co. Ltd." Their mascot is the cat Pero, from the company's 1969 Puss in Boots.
Toei Animation produced the anime versions of works by many legendary manga artists, including Go Nagai, Akira Toriyama, and Shotaro Ishinomori. Anime created by Toei Animation that have won the Animage Anime Grand Prix award have been Galaxy Express 999 in 1981, Saint Seiya in 1987, and Sailor Moon in 1992.
In addition to producing anime for domestic release in Japan, in the 1980s, Toei Animation also provided animation work for several American-made television series and feature films, such as Marvel Productions LTD., Sunbow Productions, Rankin/Bass, Hanna-Barbera and Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, Inc among others. These series' producers outsourced animation production work to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines and other Asian countries because of cheaper labor costs.