History
In 1975, Telecom Animation Film was established by Tokyo Movie Shinsha (TMS) to train animators who could draw full-animation.[7][9] Yutaka Fujioka, the president of TMS at the time, dreamed of making a big breakthrough in the United States.[9][10] So Fujioka decided to make a full-animation film that could compete with Disney, but in Japan, limited-animation adopted and developed by Osamu Tezuka was the mainstream. Therefore, he planned to establish a new studio, Telecom Animation Film, and use it as a base to produce a Japan-U.S. co-production of an animated film using full-animation.[11]
In the summer of 1978, Fujioka acquired the rights to adapt the legendary American cartoon Little Nemo into a film.[9][11][12] When Telecom advertised in a newspaper for staff, they received over 1,000 applications, and Fujioka hired 43 people with no animation experience. Rather than selecting animators with experience in limited-animation, Fujioka chose to select entirely inexperienced amateurs and train them into elite animators with full-animation skills.[11] Sadao Tsukioka, who was said to be a genius, was invited as an instructor for the first year. He used a unique method of training the new recruits, such as eliminating the influence of the TV series, as he considered it unnecessary for making a feature film.[10][11] In 1979, Yasuo Ōtsuka moved from Shin-Ei Animation and took over Tsukioka's position.[10] Since there were few animators who could actually do the work, Ōtsuka transferred Nobuo Tomizawa from Nippon Animation, Atsuko Tanaka and Keiko Oyamada from Shin-Ei Animation, and Kazuhide Tomonaga, Tsukasa Tannai, and Shojiro Yamauchi from Oh! Production to Telecom.[10] However, because of difficulties in securing production funds and organizing staff, production of the film never got off the ground, so Telecom decided to first work on another TV series and films under Ōtsuka.[9] So Ōtsuka invited Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata to join Telecom as directors, and they moved from Zuiyo. Miyazaki directed the second Lupin III film, The Castle of Cagliostro, and Takahata directed Jarinko Chie.[11] Fujioka frequently held screenings of those two films for Hollywood film professionals in order to promote Telecom and the Japanese animation industry, which at the time was regarded in the U.S. as having low production capabilities. The films attracted a lot of attention, especially from young animators, including John Lasseter.[9] The event also brought about an unexpected response, such as requests from countries outside the U.S. for TMS and Telecom to produce a TV series.[13] TMS began production of the Italian-Japanese co-produced TV series Sherlock Hound in 1981, after receiving a request for a TV series from RAI, the Italian national public broadcaster. The series was actually animated by Telecom Animation Film, and directed by Hayao Miyazaki. However, the collaboration was dissolved after six episodes were produced, and the remaining 20 episodes were subsequently produced with funding from Japanese companies. Kyosuke Mikuriya took over as director from Miyazaki, and with Telecom leaving to focus on the film Little Nemo, TMS outsourced the animation to Gallop, a fledgling studio.[14][15] Telecom then took on the actual production of animation works for American production companies such as Disney, Warner Bros., and Filmation, which had been commissioned by TMS, and became proficient in the art of full animation in the 1980s.[16]
In the spring of 1981, TMS established a local subsidiary in the U.S. and began full-scale efforts to produce the film Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland.[11][13] On the Japanese side, Fujioka was appointed line producer, and on the U.S. side, Gary Kurtz was appointed film producer upon the recommendation of George Lucas.[12][13]
Under producer Yutaka Fujioka's grand order to "produce a world-class animation film", creators from Japan and abroad were gathered, and many famous people such as Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Osamu Dezaki, Yasuo Ōtsuka, Ray Bradbury, Jean Giraud (Moebius), and Chris Columbus were involved.[13][17][18] However, various misunderstandings occurred between Japan and the US, and the production ran into difficulties. Miyazaki and Takahata, who were originally slated to direct the film, left the project, and the staff continued to change one after another, causing confusion.[12][19] Kurtz was working as the executive producer of Disney's Return to Oz at the time, and spent most of his time in London and New York. He visited Los Angeles, the site of Little Nemo, only about once a month, and only for two hours in the afternoon. His autocratic production policy caused friction with the Japanese staff.[20]
When production on Little Nemo was halted in the late 1980s, Telecom was invited by Katsuhiro Otomo, who had heard that the studio had a talented crew, to join the production of his film Akira.[22] However, in the middle of production, Fujioka requested that they make a pilot for Little Nemo (produced by Osamu Dezaki and Akio Sugino), and Telecom staff were forced to withdraw from the Akira site.[22]
The film was completed in 1988 and released in Japan in July 1989, but the box office gross ended up around 900 million yen.[12] In 1992, the film was released in 2,300 theaters in the U.S., but failed at the box office. The video software that was later released sold more than 4 million copies, and the production costs were eventually recouped, but the film failed to attract an audience, and Fujioka's dream of making a hit film in the U.S. was not realized.[19][21] The film took seven years to complete (it took 10 years for the U.S. release), and the budget eventually ballooned to more than 5 billion yen.[18][17] It was the biggest project in the history of Japanese animation, but it ended in failure, and Fujioka took responsibility for it, gave up all rights related to Tokyo Movie, and retired from the industry.[23][12]
In November 1995, the Sega Group absorbed Tokyo Movie Shinsha into Kyokuichi, with Kyokuichi being the surviving company.[24][25] In conjunction with the merger, Kyokuichi made Telecom Animation Film and TMS Photo, which had been subsidiaries of Tokyo Movie Shinsha, its own subsidiaries. Kyokuichi later changed its name to TMS Entertainment.
In the 1990s, after Little Nemo, the studio continued to work on international productions through TMS.[7] The Warner Bros. animated television series The New Batman/Superman Adventures, directed by Kenji Hachizaki, Yuichiro Yano, Toshihiko Masuda, and Hiroyuki Aoyama, won a Daytime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Special Class Animated Program in 1998.[26]
For a long time, Warner Bros. of the U.S. had subcontracted work to Telecom through TMS, but in 2000, Warner Bros. began outsourcing all production to Korea, where production costs are lower. Telecom then changed its policy and began to focus on production for the Japanese market instead of overseas. In addition, while taking on subcontract productions from TMS and other Japanese studios, from 2002 Secret of Cerulean Sand, Telecom began to produce its own productions as the prime contractor and to co-produce with other companies.[7]
In 2009, Hoshi Shinichi Short-Short, produced by Telecom and broadcast on NHK, won the Grand Prix in the Comedy category at the 37th International Emmy Awards.[27]
Telecom has been in debt for two consecutive fiscal years since the fiscal year ending March 2017, and on August 10 of the same year, it reduced its capital from 98 million yen to 10 million yen.
On February 17, 2026, its parent company TMS Entertainment announced that Telecom Animation Film would be absorbed and dissolved, transferring all the rights and obligations to TMS. The company posted a final loss of 346 million yen and was in debt for the fiscal year ending March 2025, according to its parent's corporate website. However, TMS would continue to run the name as a division.[28][29]
