Toho Scope is an anamorphic lens system developed in the late 1950s by Toho Studios

Toho

is a Japanese film, theater production, and distribution company. It is headquartered in Yūrakuchō, Chiyoda, Tokyo, and is one of the core companies of the Hankyu Hanshin Toho Group...

 in response to the popularity of CinemaScope

CinemaScope

CinemaScope was an anamorphic lens series used for shooting wide screen movies from 1953 to 1967. Its creation in 1953, by the president of 20th Century-Fox, marked the beginning of the modern anamorphic format in both principal photography and movie projection.The anamorphic lenses theoretically...

. Its technical specifications are identical to those of CinemaScope. This widescreen format was first used for the black-and-white

Black-and-white

Black-and-white, often abbreviated B/W or B&W, is a term referring to a number of monochrome forms in visual arts.Black-and-white as a description is also something of a misnomer, for in addition to black and white, most of these media included varying shades of gray...

 films The Men of Tohoku,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051092/ and On Wings of Love

On Wings of Love

aka Big Hit Three Color Daughters is a 1957 black-and-white comedy and romance Japanese film directed by Toshio Sugie....

, made use of color in The Last Pursuit,http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050926/ and debuted in full-color (and tokusatsu

Tokusatsu

is a Japanese term that applies to any live-action film or television drama that usually features superheroes and makes considerable use of special effects ....

) with The Mysterians

The Mysterians

The Mysterians, released in Japan as , is a tokusatsu science fiction film produced and released by Toho Studios in 1957. It was directed by the "Golden Duo" of Ishirō Honda and Eiji Tsuburaya . It is notable for being the first tokusatsu filmed in TohoScope and the first Toho film to use...

(all 1957). The label fell out of use in 1968 to be replaced by the generic anamorphic.

The recognizable Toho Scope logo

Logo

A logo is a graphic mark or emblem commonly used by commercial enterprises, organizations and even individuals to aid and promote instant public recognition...

 prefaced Godzilla: Final Wars

Godzilla: Final Wars

is a 2004 Japanese science fiction-kaiju film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, written by Wataru Mimura and Isao Kiriyama and produced by Shogo Tomiyama. It is the twenty-eighth film in the Godzilla film series, and the sixth in terms of the series' Millennium era...

, one of many homage

Homage

Homage is a show or demonstration of respect or dedication to someone or something, sometimes by simple declaration but often by some more oblique reference, artistic or poetic....

s to older science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

productions made throughout the film.