TOHO plans to acquire 19.7% of Orange studio shares
Studio Orange announced on Tuesday that the Japanese entertainment company, TOHO, plans to take 19.7% of the shares from Studio Orange on January 17.
Through this acquisition, both companies aim to improve the quality of their works, acquire human resources both within and outside of Japan, and also expand their studios. Unfortunately, the company did not disclose the cost of this acquisition.
TOHO and Studio Orange have collaborated on several anime, such as Land of the Lustrous, BEASTARS, Godzilla Singular Point, and Trigun Stampede.
Studio Orange is known for the manga adaptation of Land of the Lustrous by Haruko Ishikawa, the anime BEASTARS by Paru Itagaki, the Netflix series Godzilla Singular Point, and the anime Trigun Stampede, among other works. They have also been working on CG for various anime productions since the television series Aquarion in 2004.
Netflix will exclusively feature the anime series produced by Qubic Pictures and Orange, titled Leviathan, which is adapted from the novel by Scott Westerfeld, scheduled to be released in 2025.
TOHO itself is an entertainment company in Japan that dominates the distribution of Japanese films. Previously, on October 15, they also acquired a 45% share, or 6.09%, of the management, production, and distribution company for anime, CoMix Wave Films. This investment aims to enhance the studio's work environment so that the quality of their works improves and the studio's creative opportunities also increase. TOHO has distributed and co-produced all films by director Makoto Shinkai through CoMix Wave Films in Japan since The Garden of Words in 2013.
TOHO has also recently announced the acquisition of 100% of the animation distributor in North America, GKIDS. This makes GKIDS a wholly-owned subsidiary of TOHO International, based in Los Angeles. GKIDS has also distributed several titles of Shinkai's works in the United States, including Weathering With You, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Voices of a Distant Star, and Children Who Chase Lost Voices.
In addition, TOHO acquired all shares of the anime studio Science SARU on June 19, effectively making it a consolidated subsidiary. They also took controlling shares in the studio TIA (TOHO Interactive Animation) in 2022 and renamed it TOHO Animation STUDIO.
