Sony Records International (Japanese TEXTLESS boxed Walking Eye imprint)
~ Label
Annotation
"Sony Records International" is a textless logo - Sony's "walking eye", surrounded by a box outline without any text. It became its own label in 2001 used by various companies of Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc. after being split out of SME Records. It is mostly used to brand music which was released under Columbia internationally. (This is because Nippon Columbia Co. runs an unrelated Columbia label in Japan.) However, this walking eye label is also used for J-Pop and Japanese classical artists.
Note about the spine:
"Sony Records Int'l" used to be a division explicitly mentioned on the spine, but this layout template has not been used by SonyMusic in over a decade. Modern releases put the direct manufacturer on the spine, i.e. "Sony Music Labels Inc.", "Sony Music Japan International Inc.", and "Sony Music Direct Inc." This manufacturer spine text is the identical to the spine text found on Japanese versions of releases wearing the RCA, Epic, Sony Classical, Philadelphia International, etc. imprints.