Toei Video Company, Ltd. (東映ビデオ株式会社, Toei Bideo) is a company engaged in the production and sale of video and DVD software for theatrical films, television films, and anime. In recent years, it has also invested in and distributed theatrical films. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toei Company, Ltd.
Credited On
- Spectrum - LIVE TIME BREAK + STUDIO LIVE 1979 - Spectrum, released March 30, 2016 (
NZS-731). Production.
History
Translated from the ja.wikipedia article 東映ビデオ (CC BY-SA 4.0), revision 111138867.
Overview
Toei Video Co., Ltd. was established on June 10, 1970 with the aim of actively entering new fields of the visual-media industry in anticipation of the approaching videocassette era. Its office was located in a corner of the fifth floor of the Toei Kaikan Building. On February 2, 1977, Toei Geino (東映芸能), which was unrelated to the video business, merged with Tosei Shoji (東盛商事) and adopted the trade name Toei Geino Co., Ltd. On August 31 of the same year, Toei Geino Co., Ltd. and Toei Video Co., Ltd. merged, adopting the trade name Toei Geino Video Co., Ltd. On May 27, 1983, in pursuit of business development as a comprehensive video software manufacturer, the company reverted to the name Toei Video Co., Ltd., the same name it had used at its establishment in 1970.
In 1986, it began producing the original video animation series Toei V Anime, followed in 1989 by the direct-to-video film line Toei V Cinema. It releases approximately 40 titles per month, including films, animation, television series, and Toei V Originals, as well as documentaries, music, sports, karaoke, and educational videos. The company has also focused on online karaoke. It formerly owned the commercial karaoke equipment line Toei BeMAX'S, but after transferring the rights to the model to BMB in 2004, it has mainly provided background video (BGV) content.
The company is funded by Toei. Its capital is 27 million yen, and its address is 1-12-22 Tsukiji, Chuo, Tokyo.
As a feature unique to the company, videogram packages for film works always carry the boxed wording “Nationwide Theatrical Release.” Since other companies in the industry generally do not use this wording, it has not been registered as a trademark.
For videograms for which Toei is the distributor, the nominal credit is reversed at Toei’s request, reading “Released by Toei Video; Distributed by Toei.” This reflects Toei Video’s substantial influence within Toei, which does not directly maintain a video sales division.
Background to Establishment
In 1961, Toei's Educational Film Department became the first in the world to successfully develop and commercialize a sound 8 mm projector. In April 1962, the 8 mm Film Division was established as an independent unit from Toei's Educational Film Department. In the sense that it originated from Toei's educational films, it shared the same roots as Toei Doga (Toei Animation).
With the cooperation of Sankyo Seiki and Yokohama Cinema, the 8 mm Film Division independently developed a sound 8 mm projector in June 1965. During the 1960s, it manufactured 8 mm projectors in-house and sold them nationwide. At the time, all municipal libraries of school teaching materials used 16 mm film, and Toei's aim was to replace these with 8 mm school libraries. In February 1967, the division became the Teaching Materials and Projection Equipment Sales Department of the Teaching Materials Headquarters.
The department's members subsequently remained devoted to video. Three members, including Hideji Kobayashi and Toshio Oguro, who both later served as executive vice presidents of Toei Video, formed the foundation of Toei Video. At the time, 8 mm film was used almost entirely for professional purposes, with substantial demand from schools. However, as television began to spread, demand from schools declined, and its principal sales channels became limited to entertainment and recreation for crews aboard crude-oil tankers and cargo ships on ocean voyages. Once such vessels put out to sea, Japanese television broadcasts could no longer be received, and because they did not call at ports for months at a time, 8 mm film sold well. However, when open-reel video tape recorders, or video decks, VCRs and VTRs, were released, 8 mm film ceased to sell almost entirely.
The Projection Equipment Sales Department therefore began researching video, but there were limits to what a film company could accomplish in research. Until 1969, home video tape recorders were open-reel monochrome models, as cassette models were still under development despite being intended for home use. The main unit cost 200,000 to 300,000 yen; including a dedicated small television camera and monitor television, the total exceeded 500,000 yen; and a single reel of tape cost 30,000 yen. In this era, when both hardware and software were expensive, the general purchasers of 8 mm film and early video were people resembling collectors, who wished to keep the material close at hand and make it their own. In particular, it was extremely rare for individuals to own VTRs around 1970.
On October 29, 1969, as the 1960s were drawing to a close, Sony released the first cassette-format and color model, the Sony Color Video Player. Sony's release of a cassette-format model surprised not only Toei but also people in the film industry. Although the machines were large and expensive and did not immediately spread to households, expectations for video as an industry of the future ushered in a flourishing period in which companies connected with video were established at a rate of one every three days, for a reported total of 200 companies. This began with Fuji Pony, established on January 19, 1970, and included Union Film, a joint venture of Nippon Crown and Nippon Television whose establishment was joined by Tomonori Imada after he left Toei in January 1970, which was launched on February 10. Broadcasting stations and companies in the film, record, advertising and publishing industries were among those involved.
Pony, Fuji Television and Nippon Broadcasting System, among others in the Fuji Sankei Group, led the video industry. Toho initially began research in partnership with Sony, which was developing hardware, while Shochiku anticipated that music publishing would become the gateway once video became widespread and established Mainichi Broadcasting System and Chuo Music Publishing, now Shochiku Music Publishing. Shochiku, Toei, Daiei and Nikkatsu each also organized committees to advance research.
At Toei, research and investigations into video that had been conducted by various departments were consolidated around the Projection Equipment Sales Department, which had been conducting video research since the 1960s. On February 2, 1970, the company established the Video Package Special Committee, chaired by Atae Tsuboi, within the company. This was the effective beginning of Toei Video. On June 10, 1970, Toei Video Co., Ltd. was formally established, with Hiroshi Okawa as president. At its establishment, it had more than ten employees, including Hideji Kobayashi, director and general manager of sales, and Toshio Oguro.
In an interview with a film magazine in July 1970, shortly after Toei Video's establishment, Shigeru Okada stated: “Our video division was launched while taking into account Toei's accumulated assets up to that point. From now on, the contest will be over how we can gain control of the market as it expands. Video will grow. It is one of the interesting film industries. This means that, following television, a third growing visual-media industry sector has emerged. About two years after a film's release, it is shown on television; it earns a certain amount on television, and several years later it becomes video. This becomes a video cassette. It is a fact that material has emerged from which three divisions can earn money. In the end, it is no good to focus primarily on films alone. Mechanical civilization advances more and more rapidly than we imagine, so we must consider how to respond immediately to it.”
In a 1989 interview with a film magazine, he stated, “We were early entrants in the video industry. From the latter half of the 1960s, from the open-reel era, we persevered and persevered.”
Because Toho had initially partnered with Sony, which was developing hardware, it was believed that Toei would partner with Victor, which was developing the same type of hardware and had already partnered with Toei in records.
1970s
Although electrical manufacturers hurried to develop compact, inexpensive home video tape recorders, no products had yet been marketed and manufacturers had undertaken no advertising. Nevertheless, in the spring of 1970, newspapers and magazines vigorously introduced video packages (VP, a general term for video software) as the visual medium of the near future, declaring that the 1960s had been “the age of color television,” the 1970s would be “the age of VTRs,” and that video packages were “the leading candidate for the post-color-TV era.” Awareness of video packages alone rose to 50%. In 1970, Dentsu selected 500 households from Tokyo’s 23 wards for a survey, and the October 1970 issue of Dentsu’s magazine Marketing and Advertising carried its conclusion that “the penetration of video packages into homes will reach approximately 13.3% of all households nationwide in 1975, five years from now.” Against this background around 1970, Pony president Tatsuro Ishida proclaimed in keynote speeches wherever he went that “video software will become a 500 billion yen industry in ten years.” Even in the United States, the estimate was only “US$1 billion in ten years,” or approximately 360 billion yen at the exchange rate of the time, and Ishida’s statement had no clear basis.
Japan’s first feature-length video software was sold in the late 1960s by Dream Life (Nirasawa Film), which marketed the complete three-hour opera Carmen together with a Sony playback machine for enthusiasts. The first film company to release video software was Toho in December 1969, followed by Toei in February 1970. Toei’s first release was a commissioned in-house training program for Yamaichi Securities titled Convertible Bonds. These were monochrome open-reel recordings transferred from theatrical films, but they did not sell readily either to homes or to companies; there was no demand, and sales initially failed to rise. The phrase “flying a kite on a windless day” was coined at the time. The “wind” in “windless day” meant “consumer demand for video software.”
Because it took many years for VTRs to penetrate households, video-related companies, including Toei Video, remained in a state of virtual suspension for a long time and could not endure; many went out of business. CATV also existed in 1970. While Japanese electrical manufacturers pursued magnetic systems, research in the United States advanced in optical systems, and Pioneer, rather than commercializing video, began research into the commercialization of LaserDisc. The “500 billion yen industry” statement was therefore regarded as excessive promotion, and there were skeptical views about video’s future prospects. Masahiro Ogi said:
“Over the past year or two, there has been revolutionary progress in hardware. But all the software to put into those vessels remains to be developed. What can film companies do? At most, make old films into video. Unless something great is developed on the software side as well, it cannot truly be put to use. I do not believe that a video boom will explode over the next several years.”
Soichi Iwamura, chief researcher at NHK’s Technical Research Laboratories, explained that “neighborhood movie theaters will be rebuilt as buildings with many private rooms. Customers will select the work they wish to see, whether foreign or Japanese, from video packages lined up on shelves in the lobby just like at the front of a bookstore, then go to a private room, put it on a player, and watch it on color television.” The March 1970 issue of Broadcasting Culture, published by NHK Publishing, argued that video libraries would first be established in various places, stocked with every kind of video-package series and becoming highly popular with everyone from small children to housewives, after which home video tape recorders would spread.
Other views included: “In Europe and the United States, television broadcast schedules are unreliable, so timers are of no use and recording from television is impossible. Video will spread because television in Europe and elsewhere is uninteresting. In Japan, video will not spread because television is too interesting”; “Film companies cannot close movie theaters and make a living from video”; and “Demand from the general public for cassettes like music tapes cannot be expected. At best, it will be used in education and cultural instruction.” In a July 1970 interview with a film magazine shortly after the establishment of Toei Video, Hideji Kobayashi, a Toei Video director and sales department manager, stated, “Absolutely no one knows in what form video software will enter the home.” Since both early video hardware and software were expensive, the future of video remained unclear.
The film industry could not readily enter the field while standards for video tape recorder players remained ununified, in what came to be called the video format war. There was concern that film companies’ video divisions would ultimately have their profits taken by electrical manufacturers and become subcontractors. The film industry split in its response to entering the risky video business. Toei alone decided to operate a video division independently. Daiei and Nikkatsu partnered with Pony. Toho initially intended to proceed independently, while Shochiku initially planned to partner with Pony; however, Toho and Shochiku adopted a wait-and-see approach and, together with Bungeishunju and Watanabe Productions, established Japan Visual Publishing (NESCO).
There was fierce internal opposition at both Toho and Shochiku to the partnership, and their boards of directors were divided. Presidents Tatsuro Matsuoka and Shiro Kido overrode this opposition and decided on the partnership. They announced, among other matters, that “the major cities will continue to have their respective affiliated theaters, but in regional areas the two companies will bundle and sell each other’s films.” At the press conference, reporters asked, “Why are you undertaking a business that appears to destroy cinema yourselves?” The two presidents replied, “The decline of cinema is already difficult to prevent. It is only natural for companies not to fall behind the wave of the information industry. We can stop making the worthless films we had been producing for second- and third-run theaters.” Kido, whose Shochiku continued to pay no dividends amid poor business performance, was asked, “If you are going that far, why not merge outright?” He replied, “We may do so eventually.” Having become bogged down in record distribution, an area in which it had no previous experience, Toho had no choice but to be cautious about video distribution. Among film companies, Toei alone continued to operate its video business independently through an affiliated subsidiary from the dawn of video.
Toei ranked second in video sales behind Pony. Toei president Hiroshi Okawa believed that the company might have an advantage in educational materials, stating, “We have nearly 1,000 educational films, so perhaps it would be best to sell or rent them to educational institutions.” Okawa believed that selling such educational material meant video would not threaten the future survival of theatrical film exhibition as much as people thought. However, after Okawa’s death in 1971, Shigeru Okada, who succeeded him as Toei president, did not believe educational institutions would be the target market.
In a discussion in the autumn of 1970, when he was head of Toei’s Planning and Production Headquarters, Okada stated to Pony president Tatsuro Ishida and Dentsu managing director Tetsuro Umegaki:
“We will have Mr. Ishida blow the trumpet, and we intend at least to keep up with the second-place runner, then suddenly break ahead when the time comes. [Laughter] We cannot know when the opportunity for a leap forward will come without looking at the growth of hardware, meaning video tape recorders and VTRs. I think the arithmetic will be extremely difficult. A group such as the Fuji Group may be aiming not so much at video as at a comprehensive software industry, in which case it can inject capital on a large scale and steadily recoup it through links with its other functions. But for a company such as ours, which makes its living from films, bowling and real estate, the arithmetic does not permit pouring large amounts of money into video, which has not yet even taken shape. At present, business is in open reel. It is entirely like an open match. [Laughter] The businesses that are actually making money are those for companies, schools and leisure facilities. Software is moving only to such places as inns and motels. It is a minuscule business compared with the dream of 500 billion yen, but for the time being we are transferring to video films produced by our educational-film division and part of the entertainment business, namely Toei Porno, for this market.
“We must not fall behind Pony in considering now how to create a distribution structure for VPs, or video packages, when the era of home use arrives. Fortunately, for serious how-to programs and educational software, we have distribution routes established through more than a decade of producing and distributing 16 mm and 8 mm films. We would like to make use of these as video sales channels. It will not become profitable overnight, but we have a means of using this network. The other type is light entertainment software. This will probably become the greatest earner in the future, but precisely for that reason, we must establish a distribution organization for entertainment material before the age of home use arrives, otherwise we will not be able to enjoy the benefits of video.
“The reason we are making considerable profits in the depressed film industry today is that we have secured good markets. We have 80 directly operated theaters and 250 specialized theaters that show only Toei works, for a total affiliated market of 330 theaters, which gives us stable income. To develop this market, we have helped strengthen exhibition capital by adding coffee shops and restaurants and, where there was sufficient capacity, opening bowling alleys. This is why Toei is leading the depressed film industry. This market will eventually enter the video era. At present, we are encouraging them by saying that, from our side, handling film and handling video are ultimately the same, and some theater owners have already begun to handle video. We want to make this a major sales network for our video in the future. From there, we will reach end users. Preparations are steadily underway, and when the sales base expands with the hardware’s entry into the market, I believe the time will come for us to break ahead.”
This round-table discussion among the executives of Pony and Toei, which played a leading role in the formative period of the video industry, and Dentsu, already a giant corporation influencing many sectors, has been regarded as clearly outlining a first step in the new development of the visual-media business. Many people in the film industry believed that movie theaters would be converted into facilities for viewing video.
Ishida also stated, “At present, the distribution channels being considered for video include publishing, records, and theater networks such as the one Mr. Okada is aiming for.” The idea that video might spread as rental video already existed in 1970. In the same discussion, Dentsu managing director Umegaki said:
“I should not say too much about this, or someone else may steal the idea. [Laughter] I think several large companies should get together and operate video rental stores. They would invest several hundred million yen and lease tens of thousands of hardware units to ordinary consumers. Then, just as Mr. Shoriki spread television in its early days through street televisions, everyone would want one because it is cheap and convenient.”
In the March 1970 issue of Film Times, Toho director Ryuji Kawakami stated, “Rental has many extremely difficult aspects,” and explained the problems of rental in detail.
According to a report compiled by the Japan Electronic Machinery Industry Association under commission from the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, VTR shipments in 1970 were approximately 62,000 units worth 12 billion yen, including about 24,000 units for the domestic market worth 4.7 billion yen. About 46,000 software titles, worth 600 million yen, were sold. The fields of use were, in order, corporate sales, schools and private individuals. Of software types, hobbies and entertainment accounted for 38%, in practice meaning pornography. Corporate public-relations material accounted for 15%, followed by general education and medicine. The report explained that the failure of VTRs to spread resulted from ununified standards, incomplete development, and the inability to reduce costs.
In 1971, business-use software accounted for 98% of video software distribution, while video software for private individuals accounted for 0.5%. Of the 98% represented by business-use software, adult entertainment accounted for 68%, with pink video occupying an exceptionally high proportion. The video software industry began in a state overwhelmingly dominated by pornographic video.
From around 1971, sightseeing buses and coffee shops began installing video as a customer service. Sightseeing buses had previously been equipped with color television sets, but television signals were difficult to receive in some locations and screens would go blank, creating great expectations for video as a means of covering this problem.
On July 21, 1971, the Japan Video Association, later the Japan Video Software Association, was established as an industry association for video software. Toei Video became a director company, with Okawa serving as a director and Kobayashi, acting on behalf of the director, leading the association as chairman of its business committee.
In August 1971, president Hiroshi Okawa died, and managing director Shigeru Okada succeeded him as president. Upon becoming Toei president, Okada also became president of Toei Video. Even before becoming president, Okada had held the view that television films and commercials should be regarded as “visual images” in the same sense as films, and that Toei should be transformed into a visual-media company working in every form of “visual image.” Toei Video consequently became a division strongly promoted by Okada.
Okada was on good terms with Shigeru Okada, then executive managing director of Mitsukoshi, who had the same name. Following discussions between the two, they concluded an agreement in the autumn of 1971 to sell video sets of Toei feature films. Other department stores were also strongly interested in selling video cassettes at the time. Mitsukoshi planned a video-rental business, and Toei was scheduled to offer full cooperation if it began. The business relationship between the two men named Okada later led to the Mitsukoshi Movie Theater.
The 1972 edition of the Video Software Works Catalogue, a supplement to the January 1972 issue of Monthly Video & Music listing releases through 1971, included the following Toei video-cassette titles. For corporate management and workplace education, they included Correct Speech, Use of Language, Cheerful Customer Service, and Guidelines for Female Employees; the employee-retention series Meaning in the Workplace, Selling My Happiness, The Story of Determination, The Sun of the Workplace, Changing Jobs, Dissatisfaction in the Workplace, Young People in the Workplace, and Loneliness and Companions in the Workplace; the workplace-education series Group Discussion: Moderator Edition and Format Edition; the shop-clerk training titles Beautiful Wrapping and I Am a First-Year Employee: Basic and Advanced Editions; the titles for social hostesses How to Obtain Nominations and Basic Customer Service Methods; and the financial-institution titles How to Count Banknotes, Captivate Customers Who Visit the Bank, The Humanity Required of Account Managers, and Reviving Time Deposits. These were approximately 15 to 30 minutes long, divided equally between color and black-and-white, and cost 20,000 to 30,000 yen each.
The industrial and general education title Video Computer Course—All 50 Volumes—ran 30 minutes per volume and cost 18,000 yen each, or 810,000 yen for the complete set. The Household Wisdom series included Husband, Occupation, and Family; Tobacco and Health; Traffic Safety: The Driver’s View, the Pedestrian’s View; and This Tragedy Must Not Be Repeated. Mother education titles included Soon a First Grader and Only Children. These black-and-white works ran approximately 19 to 30 minutes and cost 20,000 to 420,000 yen each. The medical and health series included Exercise and Physical Fitness from Middle Age, Drinking and Science, Black Blood, Reconsider Food Additives, Fearsome Roundworms, and Breastfeeding and Artificial Feeding. The cultural series included National Flags and Us, Snow Monkeys, Japanese Macaques, Whaling in the Southern Ocean, and Nuclear Power Generation: Its Mechanism and Safety. These color works ran approximately 19 to 90 minutes and cost 20,000 to 70,000 yen each.
General entertainment titles included A Chivalrous Tale of Shimizu Port, The Forty-Seven Ronin: Heaven Volume and Earth Volume, Hairpin Kobans, and This Head Is Worth 10,000 Koku, each black-and-white, 72 minutes long and priced at 50,000 yen. Comedy Express Train and Comedy: “Husband” for Sale! were black-and-white, 90 minutes long and priced at 55,000 yen each. Koto of the Lake was black-and-white, had the same 129-minute running time as its theatrical release, and cost 55,000 yen. Tokugawa Ieyasu was also black-and-white, ran 143 minutes and cost 55,000 yen. Ah, Classmates of the Cherry Blossoms had the same 107-minute running time as its theatrical release and cost 55,000 yen. Yakuza Detective was black-and-white, 89 minutes long and priced at 55,000 yen, while G-Men of the Pacific was black-and-white, 72 minutes long and also priced at 55,000 yen. The mood series comprised color-edited editions of Hot Spring Masseuse Geisha, 58 minutes; Genealogy of Tokugawa Women, 60 minutes; and A Thousand and One Nights of Ukiyo-e, 60 minutes; each cost 60,000 yen.
The catalogue also listed 57 adult-video titles. Among them were The Story of the Female Bathhouse Attendant, High School Girl Jungle, Sexy Female Chushingura, Embarrassing Techniques, Student Prostitutes, Every Trick of Seduction, Techniques for Private Rooms, The Female Doctor of Pleasure, Woman + Pressure Points = Rejuvenation, A Strange Tale: While the Ogre Is Away, Moaning Telephone, Moaning Girl, (Forbidden) Mischief, and Acts of Puberty. These were color works of 30 minutes each and cost between 30,000 and 60,000 yen. These titles did not exist as film titles and appear to have been works edited from theatrically released Toei pornography and imported pink films, or works created by purchasing and editing other companies’ pink films. Pony’s 1973 video release of Purple Noon, whose running time was unknown, cost 100,000 yen.
In May 1972, Toei Video assembled sales agents from around the country for its first sales liaison conference. It focused on sales for business use in hotels, buses, ships and similar venues that had been cultivated during the era of 16 mm film sales. In the first half of the 1970s, it partnered with Child Company to release video for kindergartens and with Fujifilm to develop business-use demand for how-to material relating to golf, bowling and securities companies. At the time, however, there was little to sell and few places to sell it, so these initiatives did not become major revenue sources. Adult video provided the opening for the video industry.
In February 1971, Sony held “video festivals” at six locations nationwide, inviting industry figures. The main attraction was not Sony’s vaunted visual equipment but the special corners established by Nikkatsu and Toei “to appeal to a limited group of operators.” Screenings of works such as Hot Spring Masseuse Geisha and Wet Breasts drew full houses, much to Sony’s displeasure. Having witnessed this, mass media proclaimed, “Video is pink cinema!” Before VTRs entered commercial sale, pornographic video was both the principal source of earnings for software producers such as Toei Video and the reason they were able to survive. The primary purchasers were motels and short-stay inns marked by hot-spring symbols, followed by saunas, cargo ships on long-distance routes and tankers.
Unlike the 16 mm hot-spring pornography and 8 mm blue films previously shown in hot-spring resorts around Japan, video sold to such establishments consisted of approximately 30-minute compilations of sex scenes from pink films formerly produced by film companies, since video tapes at the time had a capacity of only 30 minutes. The playback machines were open-reel systems or U-matic professional players. Both the equipment and the tapes were expensive, and only such venues could handle them. Although hardware manufacturers did not want to publicize this, video had been installed at 5,000 to 6,000 hot-spring-marked establishments nationwide by around 1973.
Teichiku was the first company to sell such material, releasing it on May 1, 1970. As a record company, Teichiku had neither the expertise nor the software for pink films. It gathered pink-film prints by purchasing them from rundown theaters for 3,000 or 4,000 yen, paid copyright fees of 200,000 yen, made pink videos from them and sold them. Teichiku withdrew quickly. Thereafter, only three companies produced and sold such material: Toei Video; Japan Vicotte, a joint venture between Japan Herald and Keitsu Enterprises; and Nikkatsu’s Video Business Department.
Nikkatsu had only recently shifted to Roman Porno, and Japan Vicotte naturally lacked a sufficient number of pornographic works. Toei alone did not need to create original works because Shigeru Okada had been actively producing pink films, known as Toei Porno, from the late 1960s. It sold the “Toei Mood Video Theater,” consisting of approximately 30-minute re-edits of Toei Porno that incurred no production costs, and found a business opportunity in professional use. The other two companies had to produce original works. This novelty enabled Toei Video to expand into “pink business” from the summer of 1971, generating major profits with practically no production expenditure.
Toei re-edited highlight scenes from Toei Porno works such as Virgin’s Scream, gave them new titles such as Woman’s Ecstasy, and sold 67 works under the name “Toei Secret Mood Video Grand Theater.” These 30-minute shortened Toei pornographic works reportedly remained listed in Toei’s video catalogues until the early 1980s. Well-known examples included The Shogun and His Twenty-One Concubines, retitled from Norifumi Suzuki’s Erotic Shogun and His Twenty-One Concubines, and Blonde Girl Big-Breast Operation, retitled from Kazuhiko Yamaguchi’s Erotic Turkish Bath Diary.
The original films had passed Eirin film classification, but Toei attached Eirin marks to the edited video works without authorization. While the original films had been restricted to adults, the re-edited versions carried no adult designation and could be freely viewed by children. This led to conflict with Eirin, investigations by the Metropolitan Police Department’s Crime Prevention Division, and a January 1972 crackdown on Nikkatsu by the Crime Prevention Section of the Tokushima Prefectural Police, marking the beginning of the Nikkatsu Roman Porno trial. On March 1, 1972, the three aforementioned companies established the Adult Video Self-Regulation Ethics Council to conduct voluntary examination of their works. This became the Japan Video Ethics Association in June 1977.
The establishment of the Japan Video Ethics Association required the approval of Eirin’s Maintenance Committee. The chairman of that committee at the time was Shigeru Okada, who had repeatedly clashed with and troubled Eirin in the past, leading newspapers to criticize the situation by asking, “What is going on?” In May 1973, Toei Video was involved in a major case investigated by the Crime Prevention Division of the Kanagawa Prefectural Police concerning the sale of obscene films and unauthorized use of Eirin marks. Eighteen people, including film-processing personnel, were referred to prosecutors on suspicion of selling obscene pictures and violating the Trademark Act. This was the first case in Japan in which the Trademark Act was applied to an obscene-film incident. Toei Video could not have endured without adult video.
In the first half of fiscal 1972, Toei Video recorded sales 130% higher than in the preceding half-year and remained the only profitable company in the video industry.
Pornography then anticipated an age of “making rather than watching.” Toei Kanko, a Toei affiliate, organized an “8 mm Pornography Filming Tour.” On December 2 and 3, 1972, 30 enthusiasts—including presidents of small and medium-sized companies, semiprofessional aficionados and representatives of 8 mm film clubs—gathered at Nanmaruso in Hakone Yumoto Onsen for a pornography filming session, at a fee of 29,500 yen. After a drinking party, under acting and directing instruction from Kan Mukai, a master of pink cinema, participants filmed rape and lesbian scenes involving three pink-film actresses and two male actors. Officers from the local Odawara Police Station monitored the event, leaving those responsible tense and drenched in sweat. Participants, however, generally reacted favorably.
President Okada anticipated that software would eventually become scarce when the video era arrived and considered whether Toei could cheaply acquire rights to old Daiei films, including Rashomon, which had not yet been broadcast on television, while Daiei was being rebuilt as a company holding many masterpieces. He abandoned the plan when Yasuyoshi Tokuma, with whom he was on good terms, began reconstructing Daiei.
The first stage of the strategy for ordinary households rather than commercial users was the merchandising of the popular television science-fiction drama Kamen Rider. Imitating Toho’s sale of 8 mm monster films such as Godzilla together with books, Toei partnered with Osawa Shokai in July 1972. The products combined picture-book records, stereo records and flexi-discs with visual images. The visual medium was not video but 8 mm film. The five first-release works were “Fly Man Monster,” “Kame Stone Monster,” “Gillera of the Amazon,” “Sea Snake Man,” and “Jaguar Man Monster,” each priced at 4,900 yen. They were sold only through Osawa Shokai and Toei directly operated theaters.
Because VTRs were expensive and did not readily spread into ordinary households, president Okada became impatient and ordered an investigation into which visual devices had penetrated homes. Although 8 mm projectors had not yet become widespread enough to be described as broadly household devices, they nevertheless had the largest number of owners among visual equipment. In the summer of 1972, at least 1.5 million to 2 million projectors were said to have entered homes. From this background, Okada predicted an 8 mm era in which films would be purchased as readily as books.
In October 1973, he proposed a partnership with Fujifilm. On December 1, 1973, Fujifilm projectors and 8 mm versions of Toei’s old films were released together as the “Fujifilm Toei 8 mm Movie Theater,” which became a major hit. Okada said:
“There was a period when people made a great fuss over video as a 500 billion yen industry, but it appears to have failed. The problem seems to lie more in hardware than in software. I believe the video era will eventually come, but I think 8 mm films will boom before then. Three million 8 mm projectors are currently in homes. I am convinced this has potential for further growth. To make more effective use of them, we have partnered with Fujifilm and entered home distribution. Our initial target is monthly production of 50 million yen, and next fiscal year we aim for 100 million yen. We will use existing theatrical films and similar material, but we also wish to produce new films to meet demand.”
He thereby gained a foothold for his long-held concept of “distributing films to homes.” If the venture became a boom, he envisioned a system of direct distribution to households. As of 1973, 8 mm film sales exceeded those of video software. Until then, Japan’s 8 mm market had expanded through cameras used mainly to make household records. The aim was to further expand the entire 8 mm market by encouraging demand from the 8 mm film and projector side, allowing people to enjoy home movies through screenings of 8 mm films suited to households and creating a movie theater that could be casually enjoyed at home.
The first releases included five theatrical films in the Toei Masterpiece Series: Red Peony Gambler, starring Junko Fuji; Showa Zankyo-den, starring Ken Takakura; the all-star film Mito Komon: The Nation’s Adviser, featuring Chiezo Kataoka, Ryunosuke Tsukigata and Utaemon Ichikawa; Hatamoto Taikutsu Otoko: Duel at Snake Princess Mansion; and The Casebook of Kin-san Toyama: The Mystery of the Trick Ceiling. They were joined by 20 animated, documentary and other works. Color 60-meter, 10-minute films cost 9,800 yen, and monochrome 90-meter films cost 6,500 yen. Marketed with the slogan “Turn your living room into a movie theater,” they were sold through camera stores and department stores under the Fujifilm network nationwide. The release was well received, with reservations for 1,000 sets and 20,000 films before release. It became a hit, selling 40,000 films in four months, including 12,500 to end users.
Toei subsequently purchased rights from Nikkatsu to pornographic films starring Kazuko Shirakawa and sold them on 8 mm. Film releases on 8 mm became popular as collectible editions, and the number of titles increased to 40 after one year. In November 1975, foreign-film masterpieces were added, and a highlight compilation of Emmanuelle became an explosive hit, selling 25,000 copies. Further releases included Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, starring Marilyn Monroe, a color 90-minute work priced at 15,800 yen and released on November 26, 1976; Bay City Rollers, a studio live performance from London Television, released July 7, 1977, in color, 73 meters long, with an optical-sound cassette, priced at 12,000 yen; and Candy Candy and Getter Robo G, both released July 7, 1977, in color, 60 meters long and priced at 9,800 yen each. In three and a half years, the series reached 100 works and cumulative sales of more than 400,000 copies. More than half of Toei Video’s sales in the first half of fiscal 1974, totaling 350 million yen, came from 8 mm. Video software accounted for 20%, with commissioned work and other sources making up the remainder. The 8 mm film series remained popular and continued until 1981, when video players became widespread in homes, helping to establish the habit of watching films at home.
At the time, sewing-machine manufacturers had nationwide household networks and dealt with machinery. Toei therefore believed that distributing 8 mm films to homes required collaboration with sewing-machine manufacturers. The release of 8 mm films continued until around 1978, when video supplanted the format. This was why numerous 8 mm films existed, including Emmanuelle and Agnes Lum: Lover of the Sun, a color 25-minute work priced at 15,800 yen.
Tomoaki Imada, who had left Toei after clashing with Hiroshi Okawa’s son Takeshi Okawa and joined Union Film, was called back by his ally Shigeru Okada. He returned to Toei as an adviser to the Corporate Planning Department and, effective March 31, 1973, succeeded Okada as president of Toei Video, while Okada became chairman. At the time, Okada was embroiled in a major dispute with the labor union over the restructuring of Toei Doga, now Toei Animation. Industry figures commented, “It would have been unthinkable in president Okawa’s era for someone who had once left Toei to return. It is remarkable that the union remained silent.”
Okada said:
“People apparently think I brought Imada in as video president because of friendship, but that is not all. We consulted everyone about whether there was a way to make use of his ideas and talent, and obtained their agreement. In order to make full use of a person’s talent, that person must know the company well. In the end, I think work begins with human connections, and above all he understands Toei’s character well. Having eaten another company’s rice, Imada probably understood that well himself. If we make use of his ideas, I believe our video business will grow. Of course, Imada must not think of himself as the person he was in the past. I think he understands that well.”
In August 1974, Imada became president of both Toei Doga and TAVAC while continuing as president of Toei Video. He served as president of Toei Video for 16 years until 1989 and as president of Toei Doga for 20 years until 1993. He was able to hold the two presidencies concurrently for so long because there was almost no movement in the video division during the 1970s. VTRs did not readily penetrate homes. Although compact, inexpensive VTRs were announced around 1973 as scheduled to go on sale from 1975, Imada believed that issues of format meant they would not spread immediately. In 1973, word also reached Japan that West Germany’s Telefunken would release videodiscs in Europe, leading him to believe that videodiscs rather than cassettes might enter homes first. Okada instructed him to advance the realization of 8 mm home theaters. At the end of 1973, department manager Hideji Kobayashi, known as “Mr. Toei Video,” died suddenly, and Toshio Oguro took his place.
For the period from October 1973 to September 1974, the 16 companies affiliated with the Japan Video Association, now the Japan Video Software Association, had total video software sales of 1.30822 billion yen.
In March 1974, Toei Video produced Nakayama Ritsuko’s Bowling Up, its first home video software title. It opened a Kansai sales office to strengthen sales operations. In October, Hideji Kobayashi, a founding member of Toei Video, died. In December, Tokyo Channel planned and Toei Video produced and sold historical record videos compiled from color 16 mm footage of the Pacific War filmed by U.S. military combat camera units: Records of Turmoil—The Postwar Era Seen Through Images, six volumes of 25 minutes each; Secret Records: Showa War History, ten volumes of 15 minutes each; and Color History of the Pacific War: Records of Lamentation, 45 minutes and priced at 50,000 yen. To save production costs, the video karaoke business begun in 1978 used this footage for military songs and footage from Toei chivalry films for enka songs.
The video era opened in 1975. The year 1975, when Sony released a compact, high-picture-quality Betamax VTR, is regarded as the first year of full-scale VTR penetration. Japan Victor released a VHS VTR in September 1976, beginning full-scale VTR diffusion. Toei Video partnered with Sony to release the home video Tokyo Olympics Highlights in June 1975. In November, it released five color home-video works, including Pink Floyd’s Fantasy, 60 minutes, and Junko Fuji: A Flower Blooming in Chivalry, 30 minutes, as the “Home Video Series.” Sony’s Beta format and Japan Victor’s VHS format coexisted while competing for market share, and the home-video market expanded rapidly. The number of works released by Toei Video increased at an accelerating rate accordingly.
On June 1, 1977, the Japan Video Ethics Association was established, and Toei Video department manager Toshio Oguro became its chairman.
At a time when, outside the spring and summer Toei Manga Festivals, there were no films for children to watch throughout the rest of the year, president Imada conceived a plan to distribute youth-oriented films as non-theatrical films at halls around the country other than Toei and affiliated theaters. This marked Toei Video’s first entry into film distribution. The first release was the Czechoslovak film Whistling in the Blue Sky, personally purchased locally by Imada. Its Japanese-dubbed edition, featuring dubbing by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi and others, was screened from August 1977 at halls nationwide, beginning with the Dai-ichi Life Hall in Yurakucho, Tokyo, and the Sankei Hall in Sakurabashi, Osaka. Imada said, “Audience trends for theatrical films have changed greatly in recent years, and I believe attention should be paid to non-theatrical exhibition methods using halls and similar venues. Especially in the case of films for children, their mobilizing power cannot be underestimated.”
In 1977, a sales-company system bearing the Toei Video Sales name was launched, establishing a nationwide distribution network. On August 31 that year, Toei Geino and Toei Video merged to form Toei Geino Video Co., Ltd. The 13 nationwide Toei Video Sales companies that became the driving force behind the rapid rise in video sales during the 1980s established their basic form during the difficult period after the company’s formation. The company succeeded in creating the most powerful sales network in the video industry.
The establishment of Toei Central Film was announced on December 10, 1977. Invited by Toei president Okada, Mitsuru Kurosawa joined as an employee of Toei Geino Video, receiving department-manager treatment in June 1978. The first Toei Central Film production, The Most Dangerous Game, was produced by Toei Central Film and Toei Geino Video. Television dramas such as Detective Story were also produced by Toei Geino Video. Since Toei Video was not originally a division that produced films or dramas, however, its production activities did not become active until the later Toei V-Cinema era.
The National Hometown Festival, an event commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, was held on October 22, 1978, at the National Kasumigaoka Athletics Stadium. It is said to have been the first use of the stadium for an event other than sports. At the request of Shigeo Nagano, president of the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, whom Toei president Shigeru Okada knew through the Hiroshima Prefectural Association, Okada served as event producer and chairman of the specialist committee, while Toei Geino Video handled production and operations. Major festivals from around Japan were brought together at the National Stadium. Emperor Showa attended, and the event drew an audience of 70,000. It was also broadcast by NHK.
The person originally scheduled to serve as event producer was Mitsukoshi president Shigeru Okada, who shared the same name as the Toei president. Angry that the position had been taken by Toei, he said, “Can someone like Toei’s Okada handle such an important role?” However, Okada and Toei Video successfully carried out the national event. This was said to have raised Toei’s corporate image and subsequently provided hints for the company’s multifaceted business development.
Home-video penetration stood at 1.3% in 1978.
Toei played a pioneering role in the development of 8-track, cassette-type karaoke during karaoke’s formative period and helped create the foundation of the karaoke market. Until then, Toei Video had operated on a small scale, but while seeking something that resembled video software, one salesman proposed the idea that “it is difficult to search through lyric cards when singing, but would it not be convenient to display the lyrics on screen?” The idea developed into, “It would be interesting to show images in the background as well. This could work,” and Toei decided to commercialize the product.
Toei developed original karaoke video. The first work was Warship March, using unchanged footage from the historical record videos released in 1974. Development began by targeting customers of the then-popular “military taverns” and using wartime documentary footage held by Toei News to accompany military songs. On August 15, 1978, the anniversary of the end of the war, Toei released the world’s first “karaoke with pictures,” the 30-minute, half-inch-cassette videos Memories of Military Songs: Army Edition and Memories of Military Songs: Navy Edition, priced at 15,800 yen each.
This “karaoke with pictures,” containing songs and lyrics on videotape, was well received by sightseeing-bus users and others. In response to requests for new software, Toei Video collected various documentary films and released karaoke video software one after another, including collections of folk songs, enka and lyrical songs, with lyrics added to the footage. Conventional karaoke played songs from 8-track tapes, whose cueing was simple, while customers merely sang while looking at lyric cards. The new product was an innovative karaoke video containing the song and its lyrics on videotape. It attracted attention at video-equipment exhibitions, generated a succession of inquiries from bereaved-family associations and others, and was met with a flood of requests from snack bars, bars and similar establishments.
However, “karaoke with pictures,” which used video, had the drawbacks that repeated playback wore down the tape and degraded picture quality, and that cueing, which could be performed with one touch on an 8-track system, was not easy. These issues were addressed by the commercial karaoke videotape and video playback system released on February 5, 1980, aimed at snack bars and other food-and-drink establishments, hotels and inns. The system, called the “Toei Karaoke Video Automatic Song Selection System (SA-1000),” allowed microphone and sound mixing as well as echo adjustment. This innovative karaoke system displayed background images and lyrics on screen and included a coin counter allowing use for 100 or 200 yen per song. It became highly popular with establishments and karaoke fans and was a precursor to karaoke video.
1980s
Toei proposed an advanced form of “karaoke with pictures” to Pioneer, an advanced manufacturer of videodiscs and audio equipment, and commissioned it to develop and manufacture dedicated equipment. Pioneer president Seiya Matsumoto was a drinking companion of Shigeru Okada in Ginza. In October 1981, Pioneer released its independently developed LaserDisc, which initially received a flood of orders, but sales abruptly stopped after the new year. This was because the format could only play back material and there was little software available. Having heard that Toei’s karaoke videos were popular, Pioneer considered, as a desperate measure, putting them on LaserDisc. The interests of the two companies coincided, and on October 20, 1982, the industry’s first karaoke disc was released.
Compared with conventional tape-based systems, optical videodiscs had many advantages: clearer images, easier and faster access to the beginning of a desired song, and an almost permanent service life because there was no physical wear. Background footage suited to each song enhanced the atmosphere and made it possible to increase the amusement and entertainment value for both singers and listeners, greatly contributing to the expansion of karaoke culture. Toei Geino Video sold the discs together with dedicated equipment, while Pioneer also sold them through consumer electronics distribution channels. Toei, which possessed an ample supply of visual material through karaoke videos and karaoke discs, benefited from this. It was able to create software by extracting footage suited to songs from its past visual works in unlimited quantity, as well as by filming new footage, making this a major source of revenue. Okada Shigeru declared confidently, “The ultimate contest is determined by the quality of the software. Film companies have accumulated the greatest know-how in software production. When the age of software comes, it will be our turn.” Karaoke discs sold explosively, and laser karaoke quickly spread throughout the industry. Major karaoke operators such as JHC (now BMB), Daiichikosho, and Nikkodo (now BMB) entered the market; Victor Company of Japan and Matsushita Electric released VHD systems, while Sony released CD systems. “Karaoke with pictures” swept nightlife entertainment districts, brought about the rapid spread of karaoke, and became a driving force behind the creation of karaoke culture, including in Asia.
Japanese karaoke, which began in the 1970s as a customer service at entertainment establishments such as bars and snack bars, expanded beyond drink-related audiences to include young people, families, and seniors through developments such as the “laser karaoke system” and “karaoke with pictures” videodiscs, in whose development Toei was involved; Pioneer’s LD disc karaoke system, launched in 1982; and the introduction of remote-control song selection through LD auto changers in 1984. It became established as one of Japan’s representative forms of entertainment. In 1986, Pioneer president Seiya Matsumoto presented Toei with a letter of appreciation, stating that it had “made a tremendous contribution to establishing an unsurpassed position as a bearer of visual karaoke culture.” The selection of laser karaoke is also said to have been a factor in raising Daiichikosho to the top position in the karaoke sales industry. During the 1970s, the principal work had been transferring Toei’s older films to video, but the production of karaoke software created a new field of work.
The video business, which had emerged in the 1970s, expanded greatly from the 1980s onward and, together with Toei Doga (Toei Animation), became a major business supporting Toei thereafter.
In September 1980, Yuji Homma transferred from Sky Corporation. In August 1981, the “Million Seller Series,” priced at 9,800 yen for 30 minutes, was released, significantly cheaper than the previous video price of 15,800 yen for 30 minutes. Although they were abbreviated 30-minute editions, titles included The Most Dangerous Game and Galaxy Express 999. Video software shipments began increasing rapidly in 1981, attributed to such factors as consumer electronics manufacturers heavily promoting VTRs as the next product after television sets and electrical appliance stores beginning to stock them. Regarding the spread of video rentals, which originated in the record-rental business, the Japan Video Software Association argued that “film companies used wholesalers handling adult videos and placed their products on those sales routes.” With the sharp increase in VTR penetration during the 1980s, the video industry enjoyed unprecedented sales. In response, Toei president Okada advocated “transforming from a film company into a comprehensive visual-content supplier.” Toei Geino Video, which had a strong presence in pornography, recorded 150 million yen in a single month in December 1981. According to a survey by the Japan Video Association, adult videos accounted for 31.6% of the total during the first half of 1981. However, because many adult-video producers were outsiders that did not belong to the Video Association, adult videos actually accounted for about 60%. Video software sales in the first half of 1981 amounted to 2.24 billion yen, but it was said that outsider producers sold more than an additional 1 billion yen in adult videos apart from this figure. At the time, there were still only around 50 companies handling pornographic videos, but Nippon Video Eizo, which marketed Kyoko Aizome’s Live Filming of the Real Thing: The Throbbing of Lust, succeeded with a strategy of placing the product in binibon stores. Despite having only five employees, it sold more than 7,000 copies of the 14,000-yen video and built a building. In 1981, 443 Japanese films were produced, compared with 560 pornographic videos. In November 1981, Tomonori Imada became president of Toei Geino Video, concurrently serving as president of Toei Doga, and the home-video market entered an offensive phase. The home market continued to expand, while sales of 8 mm home films, which had previously provided home viewing of entertainment films, came to an end.
In 1982, the main price range for VTRs was more than 150,000 yen; by 1985, it had fallen to between 100,000 and 130,000 yen. In 1982, VTRs had penetrated approximately 15% of households, amounting to 5 million units, while LaserDisc hardware had reached 50,000 units during the same period. In 1984, household VTR penetration rose to 35%. Toei Video also accelerated its aggressive management. Toei Video president Tomonori Imada judged that its core video software business had entered a period of rapid growth, expanded video software distributors to include record stores and camera stores in addition to specialist video shops, and achieved sales of 2.4 billion yen in 1982, approximately 90% higher than the previous year. Industry-wide video software sales were said to have exceeded 20 billion yen. In November 1982, Toei entered into a sales alliance in the software field with Nippon Columbia. The alliance complemented the weaknesses of both parties, as Nippon Columbia lacked visual works and Toei Geino Video lacked music software. Kaoru Yumi’s Eternal Fairy, released in 1983, was then described as a “moving photo book” and spearheaded the image-video boom. In November 1983, Toei entered into a sales alliance with the Haruki Kadokawa Office, which had previously been affiliated with Pony, and videos of Legend of the Eight Samurai were sold in theaters simultaneously with the film’s release. They ultimately sold 50,000 copies and generated 700 million yen in sales, setting a new record for video sales. Applications from various retailers to carry Toei products then flooded in. Toei Video’s annual sales in 1983 were 8 billion yen, nearly triple the previous year’s sales. Toei held an advantage in video sales because it possessed a wide range of popular content, including pornography and yakuza films, in which it was strong in video, as well as Sentai productions and animation. The 1983 sales breakdown consisted primarily of 4 billion yen in videocassettes and 3 billion yen in karaoke videos, with other products accounting for the remainder. Toei Video later became known for Toei V-Cinema, but at this time Imada stated, “In the future, we want to produce works for video ourselves.”
Video rentals became established in everyday life in the mid-1980s. Because the selection of attractive software determined sales at the rapidly increasing number of video rental stores, demand for inventory led the video divisions of film companies, which had accumulated past productions, to release older works in large numbers from around 1983 to around 1985, generating large profits through easy business. Toei Video also finally became able to conduct its business primarily through video software. At the time, Toho’s in-house production vitality had weakened, and in many cases it did not possess secondary-use rights for video sales of new works. Although Toei was increasingly producing affiliated works with Kadokawa and Office Academy, among others, it still produced many works in-house and therefore also surpassed Toho in video sales. Feeling a sense of crisis, Toho began producing theatrical animated films such as Touch and Kimagure Orange Road: I Want to Return to That Day as part of its merchandising development during this period.
On March 8, 1983, Toei Geino Video, Toei, and Toei Doga entered into a business alliance with CSK and entered the nascent game software market. As CSK was also accelerating research into CATV, it was believed that the companies might jointly make a full-scale entry into new-media fields such as CATV in the near future. Presidents Shigeru Okada and Isao Okawa each stated in similar terms that they wished to continue considering new businesses combining visual media and computers. In May 1983, Toei Geino Video changed its corporate name to Toei Video in accordance with its actual management structure. For Kadokawa’s film Legend of the Eight Samurai, released in December of that year, the company undertook video sales simultaneously with the theatrical release and set a new record of 43,000 cumulative shipments in two months.
The Fair Trade Commission issued a severe warning over the provision of excessively valuable prizes, including overseas trips, in connection with videos sold from November 1983 through January 1984, as the prizes exceeded the maximum amounts stipulated by the “Notification on Restrictions on Premium Offers.”
As video equipment penetration showed remarkable growth, while later entrants Toho and Shochiku were steadily generating profits from their video software divisions directly rather than establishing subsidiaries, and as the video industry was entering an era of intense competition, Toei established a Video Business Department at its head office on May 1, 1984. Of Toei Video’s planning, production, and sales operations, sales were transferred to a business directly controlled by Toei’s head office. As a result of this organizational reform, video division sales and other figures thereafter represented the combined results of Toei Video and the head office Video Business Department, rather than Toei Video alone. The Video Business Department’s sales in 1985 reached approximately 10.6 billion yen, but intensified competition with other companies left sales flat in 1986 and caused ordinary profit to decline slightly.
From around 1985, the number of people watching films on home video increased significantly, and the number of video rental stores surged to about 8,000 nationwide. Along with this, stores handling unauthorized commercially available works and mass-copied pirated editions increased. In response, the Japan Video Association formulated and implemented guidelines for a “rental system for individuals” in April 1983, and conducted an “illegal rental eradication campaign” the following year. Because rapidly expanding rental video stores bought video software in large quantities when opening, Toei, which possessed a large volume of past content, transferred older works to video one after another, and rental-video sales also expanded rapidly. Entrants from other industries successively entered the video rental business, and rental store operators increasingly called for management know-how. In response, Toei and Toei Video sought to maintain close relationships between manufacturers and rental video stores and, in order to survive the coming period of upheaval in the rental market, held the first “Rental Shop Convention” in 13 cities nationwide, beginning at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Tokyo in October 1986. Toei president Shigeru Okada, Toei Video president Tomonori Imada, and video rental shop operators deepened exchanges through discussions and other activities. Between 50 and 200 rental-store representatives attended each venue, for a total attendance of 1,500. Annual sales in 1986 were 15 billion yen. The “Rental Shop Convention” was held again from May through June 1987 in 23 cities nationwide, encouraging the expansion of stores handling Toei software. It continued to be held annually into the 1990s. As the rental-store market expanded through successive entries from other industries, Toei conducted direct business with about 2,000 rental stores, but also organized the “Toei Video Family” with the aim of increasing the number of partner stores to 3,000.
In October 1985, Toei formed an alliance with Tohokushinsha and sold on video films for which the company held the rights, including Exterminator 2 and Murderer. In March 1986, Mitsubishi Corporation, Tohokushinsha, and Toei jointly released the first original video animation, Amon Saga. Beginning with the third original video animation, Shonan Bakusozoku, packages were labeled “V Anime,” after which the company produced one hit after another.
In 1987, Toei surpassed Pony in sales for the first time. The major increase in Toei Video sales contributed to Toei’s 64th fiscal-year results, from September 1, 1986, to August 31, 1987, recording total sales of 100 billion yen for the first time for a film company. Toei became the leading film company in sales.
Beginning in 1987, Toei and Toei Video organized the “Toei Karaoke Video Queen Contest” to select campaign girls for Toei Video Karaoke. A total of 2,563 people applied for the first contest, including Renho, who was selected as a Clarion Girl the following year. Naomi Yamashita and Sachiko Kamachi (Izumi Sakai) were selected in the third “‘89 Toei Karaoke Queen” contest. As part of Toei’s promotional campaign, they toured karaoke establishments in regional areas and also appeared in Toei karaoke videos. Their appearances in Toei films and television productions were also announced, though it is unknown whether they appeared in them. After making her singing debut with Zard in 1991, Sakai continued to serve as a Toei Karaoke Queen for some time. The contest ended with its seventh edition, held in April 1993.
In September 1988, Toei and Toho received a recommendation from the Fair Trade Commission regarding an agreement to maintain a minimum video rental fee of 500 yen.
Because the spread of rental systems was expected to cause a shortage of software, Toei began mass-producing original videos under the Toei V-Cinema label in March 1989, beginning with Crime Hunter: Bullet of Anger. The productions became major hits and achieved such great success that V-Cinema became synonymous with original videos, making Toei effectively the creator of the original video (OV). The success of V-Cinema was also the result of Toei Video’s accumulated achievements and foresight in the video market over many years.
In June 1989, Ryonori Watanabe succeeded Tomonori Imada as president of Toei Video. Watanabe concurrently served as head of Toei’s head office Video Business Department. Toshio Oguro became executive vice president.
1990s
On February 5, 1990, Toei announced an aggressive expansion of its V Cinema video feature-film brand and the production of ten V Cinema works scheduled to begin in April, at the Tokyo Prince Hotel. An unprecedentedly long table was prepared for the production announcement press conference, attended by 32 people in total, including President Watanabe, directors Kurosawa and Yoshida, and the original authors, directors, and lead cast members.
In May 1991, Toei released Two Magical Nights, directed by Ushiyama Shinichi and starring Abe Hiroshi and Matsushita Yuki, as the first work under Young V Cinema, the first new V Cinema sub-brand.
In 1992, Toei announced V America, the second V Cinema sub-brand. Its first work, Distant Justice, directed by Murakawa Toru, co-produced with TV Asahi, and starring Sugawara Bunta and George Kennedy, was released on December 1, 1992, with a production budget of 500 million yen. That December, Toei also released Madame Emmanuelle in Manila: Paradise of Temptation, directed by Niimura Ryoji and starring Yokosuka Masami, under its third sub-brand, V Erotica. Madame Emmanuelle in Manila: Dangerous Paradise, also directed by Niimura, was released in February 1993.
In June 1993, Toei established V World as its fourth sub-brand and released Crime Broker, directed by Ian Barry, produced under the executive supervision of Kurosawa Mitsuru, and starring Kato Masaya and Jacqueline Bisset, who had been highly popular in Japan during the 1970s. Under V America, No Way Back, directed by Frank Cappello and starring Toyokawa Etsushi and Russell Crowe before his breakthrough, was theatrically released in 1995 and reached first place on the rental chart in the United Kingdom. Crying Freeman, starring Mark Dacascos, directed by Christophe Gans, executive-produced by Ichise Takashige, and theatrically released in 1996, was a hit in France. Toei V Cinema’s four sub-brands came to an end amid increasingly excessive competition and the effects of the collapse of the bubble economy. Backed by Toei, which was regarded as having Japan’s richest content library, Toei V Cinema survived the intensely competitive video-rental market through to the transition from VHS to DVD by focusing principally on genres in which Toei had traditionally excelled, including works with a strong delinquent sensibility, such as yakuza and erotic titles, as well as hero productions for children.
Networked karaoke appeared in the summer of 1992, while BeMAX'S, jointly developed by Toei Video, Pioneer, JHC, and Nikkodo, was not released until February 1995. Because it was a late entrant, Chairman Okada Shigeru and President Takaiwa Tan expressed concern over whether sales prospects would be secure. Of the 8,000 songs produced for BeMAX'S, the three companies other than Pioneer handled production. The total investment was 2.2 billion yen, with each company bearing slightly more than 700 million yen.
Watanabe Ryotoku, who had served as president of Toei Video since 1989, resigned as president of Toei Video and from all other positions at Toei in April 1996 after a 1995 tax investigation revealed excessive misuse of company funds and prompted the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau to investigate Toei Video. Takaiwa Tan, president of Toei, concurrently assumed the presidency of Toei Video as Watanabe’s successor. At the board meeting held after Toei’s 37th annual general meeting of shareholders on June 27, 1996, Tomari Tsutomu, president of Toei Animation (東映動画), was promoted to vice president of Toei as the successor to Toei vice president Watanabe Ryotoku. Tomari became responsible for overseeing the television, video, film, and educational business divisions, placing all visual-media operations under his supervision.
In Toei’s 73rd business term, from April 1995 to March 1996, revenue was 89.873 billion yen, a year-on-year decrease of 2.8%. Of this, the video business generated revenue of 18.098 billion yen, down 14.4% year on year, as revenue in the rental market stagnated because of excessive competition among operators and a trend toward lower prices. Although networked karaoke rapidly grew into a principal product, revenue declined because Toei’s shift to networked karaoke came later than that of its competitors. Conditions also became severe as conventional package-format karaoke experienced a marked decline. In Toei’s 76th business term, from April to September 1998, the video business generated revenue of 6.47875 billion yen, down 10.8% year on year. Karaoke faced a crisis after accumulating 6 billion yen in bad debt.
2000s
From autumn 2000, Toei Video became the first major film company to begin full-scale DVD releases.
Amid Japan's economic recession, the software market recorded sales of around 340 billion yen in 2003, surpassing the bubble-era level of 1991. The spread of hardware and lower software prices rapidly accelerated the media shift from VHS to DVD. Battle Royale II: Requiem, released by Toei Video at the end of 2003, sold 180,000 units in its initial shipment across its various DVD editions, including retail and rental DVDs.
The karaoke business, which had made major contributions, was transferred to USEN BMB Entertainment in May 2004.
History
On October 16, 1965, Toei Geino Co., Ltd. (former) was established.
On June 10, 1970, Toei Video Co., Ltd. (former) was established.
On November 7, 1972, Tosei Shoji Co., Ltd. was established.
In February 1977, the former Toei Geino Co., Ltd. merged with Tosei Shoji Co., Ltd. and changed its name to Toei Geino Co., Ltd.
In August 1977, the former Toei Video Co., Ltd. merged with Toei Geino Co., Ltd. and changed its name to Toei Geino Video Co., Ltd.
In May 1983, it changed its name to Toei Video Co., Ltd.
In October 2010, Toei Video marked the 40th anniversary of its establishment.
In October 2020, Toei Video marked the 50th anniversary of its establishment.
On April 1, 2024, Toei Video succeeded to Toei's package business through an absorption-type company split (simplified absorption-type company split), with Toei as the splitting company. In connection with this, Toei Video and Toei concluded an absorption-type company split agreement on January 22 of the same year.