Toei Animation, the Los Angeles-based subsidiary of the Japanese anime giant, is establishing a licensing office and plans a major presence at the upcoming licensing show in New York City where it will showcase Digimon and other Toei properties.  Coy Edmunds, a former Director at Focus Sports Management, has been named Director of Business Development and Licensing and will head up the new unit.

Toei Animation (Dragon Ball) was one of the first anime studios to enter the American market directly when it created a Los Angeles office in 1978 to shop its anime movies.  America wasn't ready for anime in the late seventies and Toei eventually closed its L.A. office in 1982.  Then in 2004 Toei returned to L.A. and in 2005 began releasing DVDs of its anime series such as Slam Dunk and Air Master in partnership with Geneon (see 'Geneon Schedules First Toei Titles').  Unfortunately Toei's entry into the American anime market coincided with a downturn in anime sales and the Toei titles were on hiatus by the end of the summer of 2005 (official word on their cancellation came in 2006).

But this time Toei has kept its L.A. office and has concentrated on licensing projects, placing Bobobo-Bo Bo-BoBo with Illumitoon (see 'Illumitoon Nabs Bobobo-Bo Bo-Bobo'), moving One Piece from 4Kids to FUNimation (see 'One Piece on Cartoon Network'), and getting the fifth Digimon series on the Disney Channel (see 'Disney Nabs 5th Digimon Series').