Toei Animation

Toei Animation Co., Ltd. (東映アニメーション株式会社) is a Japanese animation studio owned by the Toei Company. Since its foundation in 1956, Toei has created a large number of TV series, and movies, many popular worldwide. One of these are One Piece. Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, and Yoichi Kotabe have all worked with the company in the past. Toei is a shareholder in the Japanese anime satellite television network, Animax, along with other noted anime studios and production enterprises such as Sunrise, TMS Entertainment and Nihon Ad Systems Inc.

Until 1998, Toei Animation was known as Toei Doga (東映動画) (although even at that time the company’s formal English name was indeed “Toei Animation Co. Ltd.”), with “dōga” being the native Japanese word for “animation” which was widely used until the 1970s. Their mascot is the cat Pero.

Toei Animation produced the anime versions of many of Go Nagai's works during the 1970s, including Devilman, Cutey Honey, Dororon Enma-kun, and Majokko Tickle (all in cooperation with Nagai's Dynamic Productions).

In addition to producing anime for domestic consumption in Japan, Toei Animation has also provided animation work for many American-made television series, such as Muppet Babies and My Little Pony. Many of these productions, such as Transformers and G.I. Joe were contracted to them via Sunbow Productions.