Inside Japan's Beloved Toei Animation
by Mayumi Tachikawa
Toei Animation Co., Ltd., was established
in 1956, but its inception dates back to the merger of Japan Animation
Co., Ltd. with Toei Company, Ltd. in 1948. The current studio was
built in Tokyo's Higashi Oizumi district at the end of 1956 and production
started in 1957. As early as 1958, the first feature animation called
The White Snake, which won numerous international film festival
awards, was released. Since then, Toei Animation has been the leader
in Japanese animation, releasing to the world many features and TV
shows. It would not be an exaggeration to say that there are hardly
any Japanese who spent their childhood not going crazy over
Toei's animes.
Especially recently, Toei Animation has produced many TV animes which
are broadcast abroad. Sailormoon, Galaxy Express 999,
Dragonball, Dragonball Z, Saint Seiya and Ken,
the Great Bear Fist....these names are well known to children
all over the world.
Toei Animation has also contributed to the animation industry by nurturing
talents. For instance, Mr. Hayao Miyazaki (Kiki's Delivery Service,
My Neighbor Totoro, The Princess Mononoke) and Mr. Isao
Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, Memories of Yesterday,
The Raccoon War) of Studios Ghibli once worked for Toei Animation.
Taking a Trip
I visited the company's studio in Higashi-Oizumi in the middle
of April, 1999 (the company's headquarters is in Shinjyuku in central
Tokyo). Higashi-Oizumi is somewhat like a "Studio Town,"
with Toei's studios for live-action films, special effects and animation
all in one city. The town itself is rather quiet, a mixture of residences
and commercial buildings with a small downtown area with a casual
atmosphere.
The studio currently produces a weekly output of 5-6, 30-minute TV
series and one full-length feature animation every 1-2 years. In addition,
longer versions of TV animations, special feature-length animations,
for "The Toei Animation Festival" are made here. The Toei
Animation Festival is held twice a year during school holidays, and
features hit TV shows in special versions. About 200-250 people, including
clerical workers, staff the studios regularly. For almost all of the
TV animations, external studios also work for hire. For each TV series,
the average number of involved staff ranges from 50 to 100. At the
time of my interview, five television series were in production. Toei
Animation also has affiliated studios abroad, including one in the
Philippines.
The interviewee this time was Mr. Shinji Shimizu, Producer of Toei
Animation Co., Ltd. Mr. Shimizu joined Toei Animation in 1977 and
has produced such animes as Ge-Ge-Ge No Kitaro, Shoot!,
The File of Young Kindaichi, Galaxy Express 999, Eternal
Fantasy, and many others.
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Shinji
Shimizu, Producer of Toei Animation Co., Ltd. All images ©
Mayumi Tachikawa.
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Toei's Production Process
According to Mr. Shimizu, one of Toei Animation's outstanding
characteristics is that one director takes responsibility for the
entire production process of the episode he/she is in charge of. In
other words, the director himself/herself draws the storyboards, and
directs the total production including sound effects and voice-over.
Typically, storyboards are drawn by a specialist, and there is usually
a special sound director for sound and voice-over. This style of Toei's
comes from its mother company's tradition. Also the leader of the
live-action Japanese film industry, Toei's directors are responsible
for every segment of the movie making process. Mr. Shimizu kindly
showed me a couple of scenarios and storyboards from The File of
Young Kindaichi, a hit anime series now on TV. As TV series are
broadcast weekly, each series has 6-8 directors, who take turns in
a shift system. I hear even some of Toei's live-action directors switch
to be animation directors.
Toei Animation introduced Celsys' RETAS, a digital ink and paint system,
in 1996. In April of last year, digitization of the ink & paint
division was fully completed, which led to a cost reduction of ¥100
million per year. In addition there weren't any difficulties with
the staff either, as they embraced the shift to new technology. Editing
is also digitized with Avid's editing system. Toei Animation's shift
to digital production has been very successful. Mr. Shimizu expects
that in 3 years, all work from the ink & paint part of the process
on will be fully digitized in the Japanese animation industry.
Other areas still remain manual like character and prop model sheets,
storyboards, layouts and backgrounds (PCs are used for a part of this
step). "What distinguishes Japanese animes is the importance
of characters. Maybe this is based on the fact that most Japanese
animes are based on `manga' [comic books]. Japanese manga culture
is unique...in the whole world. By animating characters from manga,
Japanese animation has established its own style. This is a stark
contrast to animations outside of Japan, in which stories are considered
to be the most important. In Japan, stress has always been on characters...spotlighting
characters in an impressive way is always the big issue," says
Mr. Shimizu.
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