Toei Animation, founded in 1948 as Japan Animated Films (Nihon Dōga Eiga) and renamed in 1956 after its acquisition by Toei Company, is Japan's oldest continuously operating anime studio. Its catalogue spans The Tale of the White Serpent (1958, considered the first full-colour Japanese animated feature), the super-robot television boom of the 1970s, and the Weekly Shōnen Jump adaptations that still constitute the bulk of its output: Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, One Piece.
Postwar founding
Toei Animation was effectively founded in 1948 as Nihon Dōga Eiga, a small studio modelled after Walt Disney Productions. The Toei Company film studio acquired it in 1956 and rebranded it Toei Dōga ('Toei Animation'). Its 1958 theatrical feature Hakujaden (The Tale of the White Serpent), directed by Taiji Yabushita, is generally treated as Japan's first full-colour theatrical anime feature.
Many of the directors and animators who later defined the industry — Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Yoichi Kotabe, Yasuo Otsuka — passed through Toei in the 1960s as their entry points to the industry.
House style and franchises
Toei's commercial identity has long been weekly children-and-family television: Dragon Ball (1986–present), Sailor Moon (1992–), One Piece (1999–), and the Pretty Cure magical-girl franchise (2004–present). Its production schedule on these long-runners has historically been demanding, and it operates a substantial overseas subcontracting network in the Philippines (Toei Animation Philippines, founded 1986) for in-betweening and clean-up.