Abstract: This presentation will focus on the history of the Japanese animation film industry after WWⅡ. This era is the time when the industrialization of animation in Japan started to take off.
Toei Doga Co. was founded in 1956.This studio is a subsidiary of Toei. Okawa Hiroshi, who was the president of Toei, became the founder and president of Toei Animation, too. He explained the purpose of founding his animation studio as follows. First reason was that there was a short supply of educational films. Secondly was the demand of advertisements on TV. Lastly was export of Japanese films.
The film industries as well as Japan politicians and bureaucrats were expecting foreign currency for the export of their films. This was an important aspect for post-war reconstruction. But it should be noted that there was no plan for animated TV series, yet.
On the other hand, Japanese TV station needed many films to air. At first, they bought American dramas and cartoons. This is because Japanese film industries looked upon a TV as an enemy. So they couldn’t buy domestic films in many cases.
There was foreign exchange allocation system at that time. That system had controlled the increase of the amount of import films. But the competition between each TV station became intense because of the deregulation. Therefore, they started to make domestic films of cartoon.
In conclusion, we can see that there are deep ties between the development of the Japanese animation industry and the economic revitalization of Japan after WWⅡ.
(Open to Public)