Toho Champion Festival

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The Toho Champion Festival (東宝チャンピオンまつり,   Tōhō Chanpion Matsuri) was a Japanese film festival that was held by Toho between 1969 and 1978. First headlined by All Monsters Attack, it was aimed primarily at children, bringing films new and old to theaters during the spring, summer, and winter months when school was not in session.[1] Original productions for the festival included every Godzilla film released from 1969 to 1975, as well as two other Toho kaiju films. Television series episodes were also given theatrical runs, such as those of Tsuburaya Productions' Ultra Series shows, or Toho's own Warrior of Love Rainbowman and Flying Saucer War Bankid. The 1976 Spring Champion Festival was the only event that did not feature a kaiju film; instead, Disney's Peter Pan was the main feature, accompanied by anime TV episodes and Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck shorts.

The festival originated as a competitor to the Toei Manga Festival, which began in summer 1964 as the "Great Manga Parade." It was similarly held during the spring, summer, and occasionally winter school breaks, packaging together movies and television episodes by Toei and other companies for theatrical release. Prior to the Toho Champion Festival, Toho's kaiju and tokusatsu releases during the summer 1966 to 1969 seasons also appeared to compete with the Toei Manga Festival and its predecessors, with the co-features often being anime and tokusatsu TV show compilation films. Although the Toei Manga Festival significantly outlived the Toho Champion Festival, lasting until summer 1989, Toho has maintained a tradition of releasing a Doraemon movie nearly every spring break since 1980, often with multiple supporting films.

Festivals

Year Lineup
Spring Summer Winter
1969 N/A N/A
December 20
1970
March 21[2]
August 1[3]
December 19[4]
1971
March 17[5]
July 24[6]
December 12[7]
1972
March 12[8]
July 22[9]
December 17[10]
1973
March 17[11]
July 28[12]
December 20[13]
1974
March 21[14]
N/A
December 14[15]
1975
March 15[16]
N/A
1976
March 13[17]
1977
March 19[17]
1978
March 18[18]

Selected attendance

Spring 1970 Toho Champion Festival logo
Year Film Attendants[19]
1969 All Monsters Attack 1,480,000
1970 King Kong vs. Godzilla 870,000
Mothra vs. Godzilla 730,000
1971 The Great Monster War: King Ghidorah vs. Godzilla 1,350,000
Godzilla vs. Hedorah 1,740,000
Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: The Greatest Battle on Earth 1,090,000
1972 Godzilla vs. Gigan 1,780,000
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep 780,000
1973 Godzilla vs. Megalon 980,000
Son of Godzilla 610,000
1974 Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla 1,330,000
1975 Terror of Mechagodzilla 970,000
1977 King Kong vs. Godzilla 480,000

Videos

Trailers

All Monsters Attack trailer
with announcement
1971 Toho Champion Festival Invasion of Astro-Monster re-release trailer
1971 Toho Champion Festival Invasion of Astro-Monster re-release teaser
1971 Toho Champion Festival Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster re-release trailer
1971 Toho Champion Festival Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster re-release teaser
1972 Toho Champion Festival
Destroy All Monsters re-release trailer
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla announcement

Miscellaneous

Opening sequence in the Toho Champion Festival cut of King Kong vs. Godzilla
Title cards in the Toho Champion Festival cuts of Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster and Invasion of Astro-Monster
Title card in the Toho Champion Festival
cut of Destroy All Monsters

See also

External links

References

This is a list of references for Toho Champion Festival. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]

  1. Romero, Anthony (15 December 2013). "Toho Champion Festival". Toho Kingdom.
  2. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 32.
  3. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 34.
  4. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 36.
  5. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 38.
  6. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 39.
  7. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 42.
  8. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 44.
  9. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 46.
  10. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 48.
  11. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 50.
  12. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 52.
  13. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 54.
  14. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 56.
  15. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 58.
  16. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 60.
  17. 17.0 17.1 Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 62
  18. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 64.
  19. Nakamura et al. 2014, p. 162.

Bibliography

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