The era of Toei (1987 – 1996):- In 1986 and 1987 three new private or privatized television channels appeared on French airwaves. An aggressive struggle for audience, especially on children television shows, started between the two public and the two private channels. After the private channels lost market share, they counter-attacked with a non-Japanese lineup, mostly American productions such as Hanna- Barbera. This ploy failed, and TF1 remained pre-eminent in children's TV shows with its Japanese licenses. In 1991 French theaters showed ananimefeature-film for the first time: Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, a teen-rated, SF movie supported by manga publisher Glénat. TF1 Video edited the video ( VHS) version for the French market, and Akira quickly became an anime reference. However, Japanese animation genre became massively exploited by TV shows from the late 1980s onwards, most notably the cult Club Dorothée show (mostly dedicated to Toei animeand tokusatsu series). In fact, the commercial relationship between the Japanese studio and the French show producers were so good, that the French presenter was even featured in a Metal Hero Seriesepisode as guest star. Just as in a Japanese manga series magazine, the Club Doro thée audience voted by phone or minitelto select and rank their favourite series. Top-ranked series continued the following week, others stopped. The most popular series were Dragon Balland later its sequel, Dragon Ball Z, which became number one, and was nicknamedle chouchou ("the favorite") by the show presenter, Dorothée. As the series kept number one for several months, Dorothée invited Akira Toriyama ( Toei Animation), creator of the series, on the TV show studio to introduce him to the French audience and award him a prize in the name of the TV show. Saint Seiya was another anime series to achieve popularity in France. It too belonged to these inengenre, and thus showed more violence - directed towards an older audience - than the Nippon Animation studio shōnen / shōjoseries of the 1970s and 1980s. Notable Toei and non-Toei animeseries broadcast by that time on French TV included Captain Tsubasa, Robotech, High School! Kimengumi and Kinnikuman. This cult TV show ran from 1987 to 1997.