Toho, the Japanese anime company behind Godzilla Minus One, is setting up a regional European headquarters in the UK for its overseas business division, Toho Global.
At the same time, Toho has reached an agreement to acquire all shares in Glasgow-based Anime Limited from Germany’s Plaion Pictures and make it a subsidiary of the new European base. Tokyo-based Toho Global and Munich-based Plaion will become “preferred partners” in Europe through a strategic alliance.
Financial terms of the deal was not disclosed. Toho said the impact of the acquisition could be “negligible” on this year’s consolidated financial results, but noted the focus is on the “medium- to long-term,” and that the deal was part of its Toho Vision 2032 Group Management Strategy. This is based on four verticals: Planning and IP, animation, digital, and overseas.
Toho plans to use Anime as its conduit into the UK and France, focusing on theatrical distribution, home video and streaming for anime titles, and will work closely with Plaion to target Germany, Italy and other European countries on local marketing and distribution.
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Andrew Partridge, the founder and Managing Director of Anime, will join the leadership team of Toho’s European regional headquarters. The Euro base will work across theatrical distribution, TV/streaming, home video, merchandise, and games for anime and select live-action IP.
This comes just over a year after Toho acquired U.S.-based animation distributor GKids, which sits under the L.A.-based Toho International, and the launch of a central Asian hub in Singapore, Toho Entertainment Asia. Toho also owns 25% of Fifth Season.
Toho Global pointed to the European anime market being worth an estimated $4.77B in 2024, with projections suggesting it will hit $9.05B by 2030 with an average annual growth rate of 11.2% over the next five years, thanks to increasing penetration, a diverse range of anime services and expanding merchandising sales. While Studio Ghibli films have always been popular in the UK, there has been a noticeable rise in anime’s visibility around Europe over recent years.
For Toho, the plan is to maximize the value of properties such as Godzilla through the three European businesses working in lockstep. Its 2023 pic, Godzilla Minus One, was a big international box office hit, taking $116M, and won an Oscar for Best Visual Effects. A sequel, Godzilla Minus Zero, is set to drop next year.
Koji Ueda, President and Representative Director at Toho Global, said: “This move accelerates the timeline to realize the ‘Toho Vision 2032 Group Management Strategy’ by giving Toho an immediate pan-European distribution capability as well as access to Plaion Pictures’ highly additive infrastructure for merchandise operations. We look forward to working together with our new team members and partners to bring amazing content to fans in the UK, France and across the continent.”
Anime’s Partridge added: “Both myself and the team have long loved working together on Toho properties, as evident from making Godzilla Minus One, the best Japanese live-action box office hit of all time in the UK. We look forward to becoming part of the Toho family and working closer and more collaboratively with its group companies to expand the interest of anime across our territories. I look forward to continuing to work with Anime Limited both during the transition and from my new role at Toho’s European regional headquarters.”
Stefan Kapelari, Managing Director of Plaion said: “Anime Ltd is exceptionally well positioned in the anime market,” adding: “The sale to Toho creates entirely new growth opportunities for Anime Ltd. in the UK and France through strong synergies across content, distribution, and marketing. We would like to thank Andrew Partridge and the entire Anime Ltd. team for their dedication and outstanding collaboration over the past four years, and we wish them every success in this forward-looking new constellation.”