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
Selected attendance
Spring 1970 Toho Champion Festival logo
Videos
Trailers
Miscellaneous
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]
Bibliography
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