List of Japanese movie studios:
Toho Co., Ltd. is a Japanese entertainment company primarily engaged in the production and distribution of films and the production and exhibition of stage plays. It has its headquarters in Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Osaka-based Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group. Toho is best known for producing and distributing many of Ishirō Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya's kaiju and tokusatsu films as well as the films of Akira Kurosawa and the anime films of Studio Ghibli, CoMix Wave Films, TMS Entertainment, and OLM, Inc. The company has released the majority of the highest-grossing Japanese films, and through its subsidiaries, the company is the largest film importer in Japan.
The Nikkatsu Corporation is a Japanese entertainment company known for its film and television productions. The name Nikkatsu amalgamates the words Nippon Katsudō Shashin, literally "Japan Motion Pictures".
Pink film in its broadest sense includes almost any Japanese theatrical film that includes nudity or deals with sexual content. This encompasses everything from dramas to action thrillers and exploitation film features. The Western equivalent of pink films would essentially be erotic thrillers, e.g. Fatal Attraction, Fifty Shades of Grey, Basic Instinct, 9½ Weeks, as well as the works of directors Russ Meyer and Andy Sidaris.
Toei Company, Ltd. is a Japanese entertainment company. Headquartered in Ginza, Chūō, Tokyo, it is involved in film and television production, distribution, video game development, publishing, and ownership of 34 movie theaters. Toei also owns and operates studios in Tokyo and Kyoto and holds shares in several television companies. The company is renowned for its production of anime and live-action dramas known as tokusatsu, which incorporate special visual effects. It is also known for producing period dramas. Internationally, Toei is the majority shareholder of Toei Animation and is recognized for its franchises such as Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.
Shochiku Co., Ltd. is a Japanese entertainment company. It started its business in 1895 by managing kabuki theaters in Kyoto, and in 1914, it also acquired ownership of the Kabuki-za theater in Tokyo. In 1920, Shochiku entered the film production industry and established the Kamata Film Studio. Currently, it is considered one of Japan's Big Four film studios and is the oldest among the Big Four. Shochiku is a member of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ).
Shintoho Co. Ltd. was a Japanese movie studio. It was one of the big six film studios during the Golden Age of Japanese cinema. It was founded by defectors from the original Toho company following a bitter strike in 1947.
Kadokawa Daiei Studio, formerly Kadokawa Pictures Inc. is the film division of the Japanese company the Kadokawa Corporation. It is one of the four members of the Motion Picture Producers Association of Japan (MPPAJ), and is therefore one of Japan's Big Four film studios.
Women... Oh, Women! is a 1963 Japanese documentary Pink film. The first of these softcore pornographic film directed by Tetsuji Takechi, it was released in the United States in 1964.
Satoru Kobayashi was a Japanese film director most famous for directing the first pink film, the type of softcore pornographic films that became the most prolific film genre in Japan during the 1960s and 1970s. Japanese sources claim that Kobayashi directed over 400 pink films between 1960 and 1990, making him possibly the most prolific Japanese film director.
Kin'ichi Kusumi is a Japanese actor who has also used the stage name Mamoru Kusumi. He has appeared in tokusatsu kaiju productions and in pink films.
Horse and Woman and DogakaHorse and Dog and LadyandPoaching by the WaterorPoaching by the Water's Edge is a 1990 Japanese pink film directed by Hisayasu Satō.
Taishō Katsuei (大正活映) was a Japanese film studio active in the early 1920s. Founded in April 1920 by Ryōzō Asano, the son of Asano zaibatsu head Sōichirō Asano, it was mostly known as Taikatsu for short. Its origins can be traced back to Tōyō Film, a venture started in 1918 by Benjamin Brodsky and Thomas Kurihara, that Asano ended up supporting. With Kurihara as the main director and Jun'ichirō Tanizaki as the literary consultant, Taikatsu was one of two studios founded in 1920 that publicly announced their intention to make "pure films" in line with the Pure Film Movement. It established an actors school and began production with Amateur Club, a film directed by Kurihara and scripted by Tanizaki that was strongly influenced by American cinema. Other important works include A Serpent's Lust, another Kurihara-Tanizaki collaboration based on the same story as Ugetsu by Kenji Mizoguchi. The Taikatsu studio was located in Yokohama, below the Bluff and the Foreigner's Cemetery. Taikatsu did not last long, since it did not have enough theaters to recoup the costs of production and of importing American films. Its production division was taken over by Shōchiku in 1922, even though the company lasted a few more years as an exhibition business. A number of important film figures emerged from Taikatsu, including the directors Tomu Uchida and Buntarō Futagawa and the actors Tokihiko Okada, Ureo Egawa and Atsushi Watanabe. Otohiko Matsukata, who served as a director, later became the president of Nikkatsu.
Million Film (ミリオンフィルム) was one of the early independent studios which produced pink films. Along with OP Eiga, Shintōhō Eiga, Kantō and Kōji Wakamatsu's production studio, Million Film was one of the most influential on the genre during its first decade. Many of the most prominent directors and performers in the pink film genre worked for Million Film.
OP Eiga (オーピー映画), also known as Ōkura Eiga (大蔵映画) or Okura Pictures, is the largest and one of the oldest independent Japanese studios which produce and distribute pink films. It was founded in 1961 by Mitsuru Ōkura, former president of film studio Shintōhō. Along with Shintōhō Eiga, Kantō, Million Film, and Kōji Wakamatsu's production studio, Ōkura was one of the most influential studios on the pink film genre. Among the many notable pink films released by the studio are Satoru Kobayashi's Flesh Market (1962), the first film in the pink film genre.
Shinkō Kinema (新興キネマ) was a Japanese film studio active in the 1930s.
Daiei Film Co. Ltd. was a Japanese film studio. Founded in 1942 as Dai Nippon Film Co., Ltd., it was one of the major studios during the postwar Golden Age of Japanese cinema, producing not only artistic masterpieces, such as Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) and Kenji Mizoguchi's Ugetsu (1953), but also launching several film series, such as Gamera, Zatoichi and Yokai Monsters, and making the three Daimajin films (1966). It declared bankruptcy in 1971 and was acquired by Kadokawa Pictures.
Kindai Eiga Kyōkai is a Japanese independent film studio. It was formed in 1950 by directors Kōzaburō Yoshimura and Kaneto Shindo and actor Taiji Tonoyama, and went on to produce most of Shindo's films, such as The Naked Island and Onibaba.
Shintōhō Eiga is a Japanese pink film production company and film distributor located in Tokyo, Japan which has been among the most influential studios in the pink film genre since its beginnings.
Jōji Ohara was a Japanese cinematographer.
Shochiku Studio Co., Ltd. is a Japanese film and production studio company of Shochiku Group, which has been producing movies and dramas for roughly a century, being the second-oldest motion picture company in Japan.
