Tokyo Movie Shinsha

Founded: 1964

Defunct: 1995-11

Merged into: Sega Enterprises (1991), Kyokuichi (1995)

Headquarters:

Tokyo, Japan

Tokyo Movie Shinsha Co., Ltd. (株式会社東京ムービー新社) (TMS) was a Japanese animation studio founded in 1964 as Tokyo Movie (東京ムービー). Inspired by the 1963 series television series, Tetsuwan Atom (Astro Boy in the US, based on the 1952 comic run of the same name, and widely considered to be the first successful "anime"), TMS spent its formative years producing animated shows for Japanese television broadcaster TBS as well as Nippon TV among others while also producing a number of productions for the western market such as Galaxy High School, Bionic Six among others and doing outsourced work for other animation and production studios. In 1976, Tokyo Movie was absorbed into a newly-established company, Tokyo Movie Shinsha as Tokyo Movie parted ways with A-Production, which would later become Shin-Ei Animation.

In October 1992, following the failure of the film Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, the company was acquired by Sega Enterprises^[1], making it a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company until 1995 when it was merged with manufacturing and amusement center company Kyokuichi (minority-owned by Sega), effectively dissolving the company. To continue doing production, Kyokuichi established the Kyokuichi Corporation Tokyo Movie Division (also known as TMS-Kyokuichi or TMS-K) until 2000, when it renamed itself to TMS Entertainment.

During their time with Sega, the company was involved in animating the short, Sonic the Animation as well as animating the sequences for the Sega Saturn game Astal.