Studio Orange announced on Tuesday that Japanese entertainment company TOHO plans to acquire 19.7% of shares of Orange on January 17. Through the acquisition, both companies aim to improve quality of their works, secure human resources both inside and outside Japan, and expand their studios. The companies did not reveal the acquisition cost.
TOHO and Orange have collaborated on several anime, including Land of the Lustrous, BEASTARS, Godzilla Singular Point, and Trigun Stampede.
The studio is known for its adaptation of Haruko Ishikawa’s Land of the Lustrous manga, the anime of Paru Itagaki‘s BEASTARS manga, the Netflix series Godzilla Singular Point, and the Trigun Stampede anime, among other works. The studio has also done CG work for parts of various anime productions as far back as 2004’s Aquarion television series.
Netflix will exclusively stream Qubic Pictures and Orange‘s anime series of Scott Westerfeld‘s Leviathan novel series in 2025.
TOHO acquired 45 shares, or 6.09%, of stock in the anime management, production, and distribution company CoMix Wave Films on October 15. The investment is intended to elevate the studio’s working environment in order to raise the quality of their works and increase the studio’s creative opportunities. TOHO has distributed and participated in the production of all of director Makoto Shinkai‘s films through CoMix Wave Films in Japan since The Garden of Words in 2013.
TOHO also recently announced its 100% acquisition of North American animation distributor GKIDS. The movie makes GKIDS a wholly-owned subsidiary of TOHO International, which is based in Los Angeles. GKIDS has also distributed a number of Shinkai’s titles in the United States, including Weathering With You, 5 Centimeters Per Second, Voices of a Distant Star, and Children Who Chase Lost Voices.
TOHO acquired all shares of the anime studio Science SARU on June 19, and made it its consolidated subsidiary. TOHO acquired a controlling stake in the TIA (TOHO Interactive Animation) studio in 2022 and made it a subsidiary company under the new name TOHO animation STUDIO.
Sources: Orange, Animation Business Journal (Tadashi Sudo)
