Toei Animation

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KAMEHAMEHA!

Toei Animation Co., Ltd (東映アニメーション株式会社Tōei Animēshon Kabushiki-gaisha) is an animation studio based in Japan that was established onJanuary 23,1948, andToei Company, Ltd. is the largest shareholder. In terms of anime, they are known for animating shows such asDevilman,Sailor Moon,Golion (akaVoltron),Mazinger Z (akaTranzor Z),Getter Robo, theDragon Ball franchise,One Piece,Digimon,Fist of the North Star,Kinnikuman,World Trigger and among many,many more titles to count.

In the 1980s, American animated series were frequently outsourced to Toei (though Toei abruptly discontinued the practice in 1989). Some American cartoons Toei animated includeG.I. Joe: A Real American Hero,The RealGhostbusters, the first season of the originalTeenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends,Pryde of theX-Men,Inhumanoids,My Little Pony,Jem,Robotix,Dungeons & Dragons, and a small number of just about every other show you can think of.

Transformers work

The Transformers
- Season 1 (16 episodes)^[1]
- Season 2 (39 episodes)^[1]
- Season 3 (13 episodes)^[1]
- Original and revisedcharacter designs
- Title sequences, seasons 1, 2, 4 (partial, recycled animation), 5 (recycled animation)
- Storyboards
  - Atlantis, Arise!
- Toy commercials, 1984 - 1987
- Commercial bumpers, seasons 1, 2
- Public service announcements, 5 total

The Transformers: The Movie

"Scramble City: Mobilization" (OVA)

Transformers: The Headmasters (35 episodes, plusclip shows)

Transformers: Super-God Masterforce (43 episodes, plus clip shows)

Fight! Super Robot Lifeform Transformers: Victory (38 episodes, plus clip shows)

Transformers: Zone (OVA)

Beast Wars Special Super Lifeform Transformers
- "Lio Convoy in Imminent Danger!" (hosted by Toei Company*)

1999 Summer Toei Anime Fair
- "Cutting Edge" (hosted by Toei Company*)

(*Toei Company is Toei Animation's parent company that handles the distribution of their studios' work as well as the occasional project by other studios).

The trouble with Toei

Perhaps unflatteringly, Toei is notorious among Western anime distributors for being difficult to work with. For distributors releasing their material outside of Japan, Toei often refuses to provide quality video masters. The masters theydo provide are routine of the inferior picture and sound quality, and sometimes are evenincomplete in their material.

The masters forThe Headmasters cartoon Toei provided toMetrodome,Madman Entertainment andShout! Factory for Western release contained none of the before credits recaps and next episode segments. This was unfortunate, as some of those segments contained new content and not just clips. TheSuper-God Masterforce andVictory masters provided by Toei did not include theclip show episodes; while this would not normally be a serious issue, in the case ofMasterforce the clip shows were vital for making the rather convoluted plot of that series coherent.

For their US release ofScramble City,Sony was provided the video but refused the audio track, forcing them to replace it with a non-optional audio commentary. Metrodome and Madman Entertainment circumvented Toei entirely, releasing a low-quality fansubbed version of the OVA with burnt-in subtitles. Shout! Factory attempted to negotiate with them professionally but was outright denied in their request forScramble City, leaving them no choice but to omit it from their releases of US and JapaneseTransformers cartoons.

Toei later denied Shout! Factory a distribution license for theZone OVA. How Metrodome and Madman Entertainment got around them is unknown, though they likely used an unlicensed copy ofZone as they did withScramble City.

Toei's stubbornness to cooperate with Western distributors is infamous outside ofTransformers. Western distribution ofSailor Moon material was forbidden for many years after both DiC & Cloverway's licenses lapsed in 2005, and even before that they never granted permission for the final season of that series (Sailor Stars) to be distributed in North America by either entity. Toei continued refusing new potentialSailor Moon licensees until Viz Media (a Japanese-owned company) finally worked something out in 2014. Toei rigorously oversees the localization ofDigimon material in Western markets, often forbidding necessary edits or forcing inexplicable changes. Just about the only Western distributor theydo get along with is Funimation (now part of the Sony-owned Crunchyroll), the licensee for almost everythingDragon Ball,One Piece, andToriko, but that most likely has to do with the company's founder, Gen Fukunaga, whose uncle had been a Toei producer in the past.^[2]