Sony Group Corporation has owned several animation studios since the company's founding on May 7, 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita as Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo.

Besides Sony Pictures Animation, who serves as the company's flagship animation studio, Sony also presently operates Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Pictures Television Kids, A-1 Pictures and CloverWorks (the latter two through Sony Music Entertainment Japan's Aniplex).

In August 2018, the streaming service Crunchyroll announced an expansion into original content under the Crunchyroll Originals brand starting with the anime-inspired series High Guardian Spice, with select shows beginning with Onyx Equinox being produced in-house by Crunchyroll Studios.^[6][7] The studio was closed shortly after Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll.^[8]

On May 30, 2022, Aniplex, its subsidiary, CloverWorks, WIT Studio, and Shueisha announced the establishment of JOEN, a new joint venture involved in the planning and production of animated works, including TV series, feature films, and short clips. CloverWorks’ Corporate Officer Yūichi Fukushima and WIT Studio Director Tetsuya Nakatake, producers of the highly acclaimed adaptation of Spy x Family, a collaboration between their respective studios, were appointed representative directors of JOEN.^[9][10][11] JOEN will strive to establish a new creative framework that prioritizes the staff during production while maintaining high quality and ensuring better and adequate profit sharing with creators. It plans to collaborate with various studios, producers, and creators to capture the charm of each project instead of working exclusively with CloverWorks and WIT.^[10][11]

• Screen Gems (1921–1946)