Toei Company, Ltd. (東映株式会社, Tōei Kabushiki gaisha, an acronym for Tōkyō Eiga Haikyū (東京映画配給) lit. 'Tokyo Film Distribution'; /ˈtoʊ.eɪ/) is a Japanese entertainment company. Headquartered in Ginza, Chūō, Tokyo, it is involved in film and television production, distribution, video game development, publishing, and ownership of 34 movie theaters. Toei also owns and operates studios in Tokyo and Kyoto and holds shares in several television companies. The company is renowned for its production of anime and live-action dramas known as tokusatsu, which incorporate special visual effects. It is also known for producing period dramas. Internationally, Toei is the majority shareholder of Toei Animation and is recognized for its franchises such as Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Japanese. (May 2023) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Japanese article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 3,744 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Japanese Wikipedia article at [[:ja:東映]]; see its history for attribution. You should also add the template {{Translated|ja|東映}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Quick Facts Native name, Romanized name ...

Toei Company, Ltd.

Tōei's headquarters at Toei Kaikan in Ginza, Chūō, Tokyo
Native name	東映株式会社
Romanized name	Tōei kabushiki gaisha
Formerly	Tōkyō Eiga Haikyū (1949–1951)
Company type	Public KK
Traded as	TYO: 9605
Industry	Film and television Video games
Founded	October 1, 1949; 74 years ago (1949-10-01) (as Tōkyō Eiga)
Founder	Keita Goto
Headquarters	2-17 Ginza 3-chome, Chūō, Tokyo , Japan
Area served	Worldwide, with a focus in Japan
Key people	Noriyuki Tada (Chairman) Fumio Yoshimura (President and CEO)
Products	Motion pictures, publicity materials
Services	Film and TV distribution and marketing
Revenue	¥ 66,300,000,000 (As of March 2006)
Number of employees	343 (As of March 1, 2019)
Subsidiaries	Toei Video Toei Animation Toei Advartising Toei Studios Kyoto Toei TV Production Toei CM Toei Labo Tech San-ei Printing T-Joy Toei Hotel Chain Toei Kenko TV Asahi Holdings (8.09%)
Website	www.toei.co.jp
Footnotes / references [1][2]

Close

Toei is one of the four members of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ), and is therefore one of Japan's Big Four film studios.

Toei's predecessor, the Toyoko Eiga Company, Ltd. (東横映画, Tō-Yoko Eiga, "Toyoko Films"), was incorporated in 1938. It was founded by Keita Goto, CEO of Tokyo-Yokohama Electric Railway [ja], the direct predecessor to the Tokyu Corporation. It had erected its facilities immediately east of the Tōkyū Tōyoko Line; they managed the prewar Tōkyū Shibuya Yokohama studio system. From 1945 through the Toei merger, Tokyo-Yokohama Films leased from the Daiei Motion Picture Company a second studio in Kyoto.

On October 1, 1950, the Tokyo Film Distribution Company was incorporated as a subsidiary of Toyoko Eiga; in 1951 the company purchased Ōizumi Films. The current iteration of Toei was established on April 1, 1951. Through the merger, they gained the combined talents and experience of actors Chiezō Kataoka, Utaemon Ichikawa, Ryunosuke Tsukigata, Ryūtarō Ōtomo, Kinnosuke Nakamura, Chiyonosuke Azuma, Shirunosuke Toshin, Hashizo Okawa, and Satomi Oka.

In 1955, they purchased the Kyoto studio from Daiei.^[3] In 1956, Toei established an animation division, Toei Animation Company, Limited at the former Tokyo-Ōizumi animation studio, purchasing the assets of Japan Animated Films (日本動画映画, Nihon Dōga Eiga, often shortened to 日動映画 (Nichidō Eiga)), founded in 1948. Toei was a pioneer in the use of "Henshin"/"character transformation" in live-action martial-arts dramas, a technique developed for the Kamen Rider, Metal Hero and Super Sentai series; the genre currently continues with Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

In September 1964, Toei leaves the Tokyu Corporation.^[3]

In 1972, Toei started to distribute foreign films in Japan.^[3]

In 1975, they opened a theme park at Kyoto Studio, the Toei Kyoto Studio Park.^[3]

Saburō Yatsude (八手 三郎, Yatsude Saburō, alternatively read as Saburo Hatte) is a collective pseudonym used by Toei Company television producers, and formerly Toei Animation producers, when contributing to their various anime and tokusatsu series; similar to Bandai Namco Filmworks' Hajime Yatate. The use of the pen name began with The Kagestar and has been used throughout the Super Sentai (in the adapted Power Rangers series starting with Ninja Storm, the credits list Saburo Hatte. Before this, the credits listed "Original Concepts by Saburo Yatsude") and Metal Hero Series as well as for Spider-Man, Choukou Senshi Changéríon, Video Warrior Laserion, Chōdenji Robo Combattler V, Chōdenji Machine Voltes V, Tōshō Daimos, Daltanius, Space Emperor God Sigma, Beast King GoLion and Kikou Kantai Dairugger XV. The name is also used as a contributor to the soundtracks for the series.

Toei Animation stopped using Saburo Yatsude in 1999, and they began to use Izumi Todo instead. The first anime that was created by Izumi Todo was Ojamajo Doremi.

In the Unofficial Sentai Akibaranger series, Saburo Hatte is an actual person who is godlike within the fictional reality that the show takes place in. In fact, his hand appears at the end of the first half of the series to cover the camera lens and end the show, later having the second half be made under Malseena's influence while in the hospital in the real world.

In the Doubutsu Sentai Zyuohger spinoff, Super Animal War's third episode, he is portrayed by Jun Hikasa.

On April 3, 2016, an unknown Toei staff member going by Saburo Yatsude was interviewed while wearing a "Giraffe Zyuman" mask in reference to Zyuohger.^[51]