Toei Company

, also styled TOEI, is a Japanese film, television production, and distribution and video game developer and publishing company. Outside Japan, it is known as the controlling shareholder of Toei Animation and the owner of the Kamen Rider and Super Sentai franchises. It 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.
==History==
Toei's predecessor, the , was incorporated in 1938. It was founded by Keita Goto, CEO of , the direct predecessor to the Tokyu Corporation. It had erected its facilities immediately east of the Tōkyū Tōyoko Line; they managed the Tōkyū Shibuya Yokohama studio system prior to V-J Day. 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 1 April 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. In 1956, Toei established an animation division, Toei Animation Company, Limited at the former Tokyo-Ōizumi animation studio, purchasing the assets of , 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.
==Trivia==
*The name "Toei" is derived from the company's former name .
==External links==
* Toei webpage
* Toei on YouTube
* Toei on Twitter
Category:Companies
Category:Dragon Ball media