Toho

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Toho Company, Limited
The Japanese Toho logo

Type Film/theater company
Status Active
Led by
Founder(s) Ichizo Kobayashi
Founded August 12, 1932[note 1]
Head-
quarters
1-2-2 Yuraku, Chiyoda
Tokyo, Japan 100-8415
Also known as Toho Eiga Co., Ltd. (1937-1943)
Subsidiary companies
Preceded by
  • Tokyo-Takarazuka Theater Company
  • Photo Chemical Laboratory Co., Ltd.
  • JO Studio
  • Toho Film Distribution Co., Ltd.
Website https://www.toho.co.jp/

Toho Company, Limited (東宝株式会社,   Tōhō Kabushiki Gaisha), also stylized as TOHO, is a major Japanese film studio. It is headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. In the West, it is best known as the producer of many kaiju and tokusatsu movies, the films of Akira Kurosawa, and the anime films of Studio Ghibli, as well as the Pokémon movies.

The company's most famous creation, Godzilla, was co-created by producer Tomoyuki Tanaka.

History

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Toho was founded by the Hankyu Railway in 1932 as the Tokyo-Takarazuka Theater Company. It managed much of the kabuki in Tokyo and, among other properties, the Tokyo Takarazuka Theater and the Imperial Garden Theater in Tokyo; Toho and Shochiku enjoyed a duopoly over theaters in Tokyo for many years.

After several successful film exports to the United States during the 1950s, Toho opened the La Brea Theatre in Los Angeles to show its own films without selling to a distributor. It was known as the Toho Theatre from the late 1960s until the 1970s.[1] Toho also had a theater in San Francisco and opened a theater in New York in 1963.[2]

An offshoot of Toho called Shintoho was established in 1947 due to labor turmoil at Toho. The studio went on to produce a slew of films during its short lifespan before it declared bankruptcy in 1961.[3]

Toho has contributed to the production of some American films, including Sam Raimi's film A Simple Plan (1998).

Selected filmography

Films

Production company

See also: TOHO Studios, Toho Eizo Bijutsu.

Financier

Distributor only

See also: TOHO Visual Entertainment.

Note that all of the above films were also distributed in Japan by Toho or its Products & Licensing Department, with the exception of Ramayana.

Cancelled films

Main article: Category:Unmade Films.

Series

Production company

Financier only

Miscellaneous

Selected staff

Producers

Directors

Writers

  • Akira Kurosawa
  • Hayao Miyazaki
  • Ikuma Dam
  • Ishiro Honda
  • Jun Fukuda
  • Kinji Fukasaku
  • Masaaki Tezuka
  • Nobuhiko Obayashi
  • Seishi Yokomizo
  • Shogo Tomiyama
  • Shusuke Kaneko
  • Takao Okawara
  • Tomoyuki Tanaka
  • Wataru Mimura

Composers

Special effects crew

Musical artists

  • Asami Abe
  • Masatoh Eve
  • U-Ya Asaoka

Editors

  • Akira Kurosawa
  • Nobuhiko Obayashi

Cinematographers

Sound department

  • Ichiro Minawa
  • Sadamasa Nishimoto
  • Hideyo Sasaki
  • Yuji Tan
  • Hiromi Ogawa
  • Akihiko Okase
  • Naoko Asari
  • Tatsuhiko Sasaki
  • Yoichi Nishimura
  • Kimiko Asakura
  • Haru Yamada
  • Toru Noguchi
  • Satoshi Motoyama

Gallery

See also

External links

Notes

  1. While Toho is officially said to have been founded on August 12, 1932, this is in fact the date on which its predecessor company Tokyo-Takarazuka Theater Company was founded. Toho Eiga Co., Ltd. was founded on August 26, 1937 through the merging of Tokyo-Takarazuka, Photo Chemical Laboratory, JO Studio, and Toho Film Distribution. Its name was changed to Toho Co., Ltd. on December 10, 1943.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Co-financed by Benedict Pictures Corporation.

References

This is a list of references for Toho. 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. "Toho La Brea Theatre in Los Angeles, CA". Cinema Treasures. Retrieved 20 January 2022.
  2. "Toho" Far East Film News December 25, 1963.
  3. "Nudes! Guns! Ghosts! The Sensational Cinema of Shintoho". The Cinematheque. Archived from the original on 6 August 2019.
  4. Kroll, Justin (20 January 2022). "Apple TV+ Lands Godzilla & Titans Series Based On Legendary's Monsterverse". Deadline.

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