That’s it. A Guide To Anime Studios. A recopilation of information about a lot of anime studios. Without any particular order. Part One of Two.
Tatsunoko Pro:
The Price of Smiles, 2019, Tatsunoko Pro, Dir. by Toshimasa Suzuki.
-A very old anime studio that celebrated its 55th anniversary on 2017. It was established in 1962 by Tatsuo Yoshida. Their first anime was «Space Ace», in 1965.
-In their long history, they have been producing really popular series and helped to develop a lot of talented individuals.
-Due to the influence of their president, who was a manga artist, a lot of their early series focus on high quality drawings with a very graphic novel touch to them, with bulkier, more detailed designs than the competence. During that time, they develop three specially talented animators: Masami Suda, Tsuneo Ninomiya and Tomonori Kogawa, a vital part of their works on the 70’s, where they were called «Tatsunoko’s Three Wings»
-Between 1977 and 1990 they had a subsidary called Anime Friend, that was used like a workshop for mecha animators during Super Space Fortress Macross, including people like Ichiro Itano.
-In 1978, they established the Tatsunoko Animation Technology Research Institute, with Koji Sugii being appointed as the director and Sadao Miyamoto and others being appointed as instructors/teachers.
-At the time of production of Zillion. Animation Producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, whose contracted had expired, was set to be disbanded with his entire production team to a new subsidary of the studio after Zillion’s completion, Tatsunoko Production Office was then founded. Takayuki Goto, the character designer of Zillion, and his animation crew Kaneyume, also independent from Tatsunoko, was working there.
-On 1987, the employees of that branch including Goto and Ishikawa established the limited company IG Tatsunoko, now called Production I.G, integrating both Tatsunoko Production Office and Kaneyume.
-On 2005, Takara Tomy, the famous toy company, acquired 88% of the studio’s stock, becoming part of the company.
-On 2014, NTV bought from Takara Tomy 54.3% of Tatsunoko’s share, becoming the major shareholding on the company. Takara Tomy also continues to own 20% of the company’s stock, and continues to work with Tatsunoko to this day, Production I.G also owns a porcentage of their shares.
-On recent years, they have become pioneers on digital and paperless animation.
Related Animators: Shigeki Kuhara, Akira Takada, Manabu Nakatake, Keisuke Goto, Sayaka Toda, Ryoochimo, Tatsuro Kawano, Noriyuki Imaoka, Natsuki Yamada, Tatsuya Yoshihara, Ryu Nakayama and Shun Enokido.
Former related animators: Ippei Kuri, Koji Nanke, Sadao Miyamoto, Koji Sugii, Motosuke Takahashi, Masami Suda, Tamotsu Tanaka, Norio Shioyama, Chuuichi Iguchi, Tsuneo Ninomiya, Takayuki Goto, Yasushi Tanizawa, Ikuo Yamakado, Takashi Hashimoto
Former Tatsunoko Research Institute members: Hiroshi Hamasaki, Tetsuya Kobayashi, Yoshio Mizumura, Koichi Hashimoto, Hiromi Maesawa, Kimiko Tamai, Kazuo Watanabe, Sadatoshi Matsuzaka, Mariko Aoki, Masahiro Kurio, Kanji Nagasaka, Masayoshi Nishida, Atsushi Wakabayashi, Norio Matsumoto, Yoshihiro Kitano, Yasuhito Kikuchi
Diomedea:
Domestic Na Kanojo, 2019, Diomedea, Dir. by Shota Ibata.
-It’s the spiritual succesor to Studio Barcelona, a small studio founded by former Group TAC producer Nobuyuki Suga, who retired from old age after losing his physical conditions to run the bussiness, it was officially established on 2007 after Barcelona co-representative Mitsuru Ohara succeded the bussiness, thus, strictly-speaking, it’s not Studio Barcelona, but Diomedea. Ohara himself originally wanted to establish his own studio, but became connected with Suga working on TAC and became co-representative of Barcelona.
-They often animate works by Kadokawa
-They have many in house (raised from douga inhouse) animators, and utilize them as the main staff on their inhouse projects. As far as the actual drawings go, they would mobilize their inhouse (i.e. homegrown) animators (keyframers with AD experience) to all work as ADs on a single episode, which allowed for the drawings for some episodes to be more consistent. However, on season 1 of KanColle there were composition/composite errors that would appear occasionally that were caused more by the scheduling problems.(rather than the availability of competent draftsmen)
-Their most chronic case was 2018’s Beatless, where they had to insert four recaps to allow the schedule to catch up, anime director Seiji Mizushima tweeted «I’m out of control-» before developing a sudden deafness caused by the stress. He eventually ended up on the hospital, with the schedule collapsing further out of control.
-A lot other of their series such as Chio-Chan’s School Road suffered from heavy outsourcing to foreign companies, and Gi (a) rlish Number Shura had to be cancelled due to difficulties gathering up staff.
Animators: Mitsuru Ohara, Masakazu Ishikawa, Naomi Ide, Shingo Tamaki, Shota Ibata, Tsutomu Miyazawa, Kazuhisa Kosuge, Mino Honda, Mayuko Matsumoto, Tsurugi Kato, Akane Ogawa, Tatsuo Honda, Shunpei Mochizuki
Related Animators: Sorato Shimizu, Kenji Masuda, Kazunori Ozawa, Kouta Moroishi
Home-Grown Animators: Yuki Komatsu, Hiroyuki Saita, Daiki Komatsu, Masato Anno, Asami Nakatani, Sayaka Tokunaga
David Production:
JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Winds, 2019, David Production, Dir. by Naokatsu Tsuda, Yasuhiro Kimura, Hideya Takahashi
-Former Gonzo producers Taito Okura and Koji Kakita established it in 2007. The studio was bought by Fuji TV on 2014.
-They are one of the production companies involved in digital inbetweening, they have been working recently with the software CACANi, that has a poor track record on Japan.
Tezuka Production:
The Quintessential Quintuplets, 2019, Tezuka Productions, Dir. by Satoshi Kuwahara
-Their main purposes are copyright control and production of Osamu Tezuka’s works.
-Osamu Tezuka established it on 1968 as an anime production company, as a succesor of Mushi Pro. They started producing at the end of the 70s, on specials to television, animating Tezuka series like Black Jack, Astroboy, Jungle Emperor and Hi no Tori. In the 2000s, since the late-night animation boom, their number of works started to sharply decreased. Their first stand alone production was Sengoku Musou. Since 2010, they have been constantly collaborating with other anime studios.
-They own their own subcontract studio on China, Beijing Xiele Art & Fine Arts Co. Ltd. On Japan, they mostly subcontract their work to G&G Direction and Kino Production. Their key animators usually are veteran freelancers.
Related Animators: Akio Sugino, Junji Kobayashi, Shinichi Seya, Noboru Furuse, Masayoshi Nishida, Toshio Kawaguchi, Kenichi Shimizu, Shigeru Chiba, Michinosuke Nakamura, Keita Saito, Kazuki Aoki
Former Related Animators: Toshimitsu Kobayashi, Yoshiyuki Ito, Mieko Hosoi, Tsunenori Saito, Yuko Iwasa, Atsuya Miura, Takashi Shinohara, Miyuki Katayama, Yuichiro Fujimoto, Nana Miura, Momoko Yamada
Telecom Animation Film:
We Rent Tsukumogami, 2018, Telecom Animation Film, Dir. by Masahiko Murata
-A production company launched by Yutaka Fujioka, the founder of Tokyo Movie, searching to create an studio that produces «full animation» on Disney-fashion. With their first work being the movie Nemo. Toei Animation legend Yasuo Otsuka was employed to train the animators at this studio.
-They had in-house teams for everything, from animation to photography to editing.
-They mostly produced a lot of overseas work, specially with Warner Bros, but since Warner Bros switched to South Korea to their animation production on the 2000s, they have focused more on Anime production.
-They were also pioneers on digital animation, being very early adopters of Tablets to animate.
-Their bussiness situation since 2016 has been dire, having debt issues. For this reason, they are dismantling their digital division and focusing on small, collaborative projects.
-They have been in charge of all the latest installments of the Lupin III franchise.
Animators: Kazuhide Tomonaga, Hisao Yokobori, Yuichiro Yano
Related Animators: Yasuo Otsuka, Atsuko Tanaka, Teiichi Takiguchi, Masaaki Kudo
Home-Grown Animators: Sadao Tsukioka, Hayao Miyazaki, Yoshifumi Kondo, Tsukasa Tanai, Yasunao Aoki, Masaaki Endo, Makiko Futaki, Chie Uratani, Nagisa Miyazaki, Satoko Morikawa, Toshihiko Masuda, Hiroyuki Aoyama, Kazuyoshi Yaginuma, Yuko Kusumoto, Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, Tatsuyuki Tanaka, Shinji Hashimoto, Shojiro Nishimi, Takashi Umeda, Takashi Kawaguchi, Kenichi Ohki, Shin Itagaki, Ayako Hata, Yuka Shibata, Ryotaro Makihara, Taiichi Komata, Keiko Nakaji, Takayuki Kitagawa
TNK:
Senran Kagura: Shinovi Master, 2018, TNK, Dir. by Tetsuya Yanagisawa
-An animation studio founded by former Tatsunoko Pro producer Nagateru Kato on 1999. Nowadays, their president is Keisuke Kawai, the company’s producer.
-It was originally a subcontractor company. Their first major work as animation producers was Hand Maid May. They became a corporation on 2006.
-They are known by harem, over-the-top nudity series like High School DxD.
-«Qualia Animation», which has been producing the HoneyWorks movies, are an alternate name to TNK.
Animators: Jin Isurugi, Takeshi Kanda
Related Animators: Tetsuya Yanagisawa, Maki Fujii, Junji Goto, Tsutomu Miyazawa, Takuya Asaoka, Masahiro Shimizu, Kazunori Ozawa
Toei Animation:
Star Twinkle Pretty Cure, 2019, Toei Animation, Dir. by Hiroaki Miyamoto
-The largest and oldest single anime studio ever. There are too many good people, but since it is so large, a lot of the talent is disperse behind their multiple ongoing series. They are known by the popular manga adaptations like Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon and One Piece, but they have done basically everything with the years, they produced anime’s first colour movie on Hakujaden, produced some of the earliest anime and have a producer thousands of shows and movies since 1959.
-In the past, the studio has an iron rule of 3000 sheets per episode, but sometimes, the number got to 3500. 3500 sheets were about 300 cuts and 200-300 backgrounds. Because you couldn’t surpass that number, many Toei animators perfected the art of timing and sheet saving techniques, of limited animation. If that number was exceeded, often there was some problems on the company handling with the excess. Toei is constructed over efficiency and smart organization.
-The studio has a lot of key animators, going on the hundreds of in-house animators, more than on any other studio in the industry
-They have an studio on the Philippines called Toei Phils. (TAP), not to be confused with the subcontracted japanese studio of the same abbreviation. The Philippines studio has grown since the 2000s, now taking over entire episodes and even do key animation on movies.
Animators: Naoki Tate, Noboru Koizumi, Yuichi Hamano, Mitsuru Aoyama, Akira Inagami, Katsumi Tamegai, Tadayoshi Yamamuro, Yoshitaka Yashima, Kenji Yokoyama, Toshio Deguchi, Kodai Watanabe
Home-Grown Animators: Yasuji Mori, Yasuo Otsuka, Daiichiro Kusube, Kazuko Nakamura, Shuji Konno, Makoto Nagasawa, Norio Hikone, Yoichi Kotabe, Shigetsugu Yoshida, Sadao Tsukioka, Keiichiro Kimura, Tsutomu Shibayama, Osamu Kobayashi, Manabu Ohashi, Hideki Hamasu, Koichi Arai, Katsuyoshi Nakatsuru, Masahiro Ando, Mamoru Hosoda, Takaaki Yamashita, Shinya Hasegawa, Tatsuzo Nishida, Yuki Hayashi
Related Animators: Yoshihiko Umakoshi, Kazuto Nakazawa, Sushio, Takashi Hashimoto, Hisashi Mori, Ken Otsuka, Yoshikazu Tomita
Dogakobo:
Meddlesome Kitsune Senko-San, 2019, Dogakobo, Dir. by Tomoaki Koshida
-Established on 1973. By F Production animator Iku Ishiguro. His master since Nichido New Pro, Hideo Furusawa, served as an advisor to the company, his son, Hideaki, also joined the company.
-Formerly a subcontractor company, but started to produce their own series on the 2000s.
-In recent years, their capacity has been expanded enough to support multiple series by season.
-TYO Animations was originally part of the studio, but, because of differences on the policies, they left. A while after that, Hal and Yumeta merged to consolidate the TYO Group with them, that caused the final separation.
-After Yuru Yuri’s production, Masahiko Ota and other animators on the same style and trends of animation started to heavily work on the studio, creating their now cartoonish image.
-Shota Umehara, a producer desk on the company, was very well known by giving opportunities to young animators with cartoonish, fun animation sensibilities, he is a great producer and the trust from animators and studios alike is strong. He is now serving as a producer on CloverWorks.
-The company used to have constant stable-scheduling back then, since Umehara left, the number of animation directors have drastically increased. Apparently his impact was too big.
-In recent years, they have mostly produced Moe and SoL series.
Animators: Hideaki Furusawa, Junichiro Taniguchi, Mamiko Nakanishi, Chiaki Nakajima, Masashi Kano, Hirofumi Okita, Atsushi Shoga, Yusuke Soen
Related Animators: Jun Yamazaki, Ai Kikuchi, Takashi Naoya, Katsuhiro Kumagai, Yuki Nakano, Masaaki Yamano, Masahiko Ota, Shinji Ochi, Yoshiyuki Fujiwara, Ryosuke Nishii, Nobuyuki Mitani
Home-Grown Animators: Megumi Kagawa, Masami Shimoda, Katsuichi Nakayama, Hiroshi Kugimiya, Atsushi Irie, Akiyuki Shinbo, Shinsaku Kozuma, Hiroyuki Kanbe, Hisashi Mori, Takashi Mukouda, Atsuko Sasaki, Susumu Mitsunaka, Emi Kouno, Tetsuaki Shibata
TMS Entertainment (Tokyo Movie):
Cinderella Nine, 2019,TMS, Dir. by Susumu Kudo
-An old anime company established in 1964, by Yutaka Fujioka as Tokyo Movie Shinsha. On 2000, after an alliance with Sega, they changed their name to TMS.
-On the 70s, they collaborated on most of their series with Daiichikiro Kusube’s studio A Production, now called Shin-Ei Animation
-In 1972, Madhouse was established by ex-TMS staff with funding from Fujioka, producing their first series with Tokyo Movie
-In the 80s, they launched Telecom, to produce full animation
-American investing group Merril Lynch bought 7.54% of TMS Shares in 2003. On 2005, Sega Sammy Holdings adquired 50.2% of the company, making them a partially owned subsidary of Sega Sammy, with the deal completing on 2010 to adquire all of TMS shares and make it a wholly owned subsidary of Sega Sammy, with Sega’s CG division starting to form part of the studio.
-In 2011, former president Masato Matsumoto created the subsidary «Studio Saki Makura», but merged with the main studio the following year
-They used to have ten production lines, but now there are the following studios under the management of the production headquarters with different names:
- V1 Studio. Producers In Charge: Keiichi Ishiyama, Takeshi Mizukami, Kiyoaki Terashima. Mostly in charge of Detective Conan propierties.
- Double Eagle. Producers In Charge: Tetsu Kojima, Masahiro Koyama, Daisuke Kawashima, Takeshi Yamakawa. In charge of series like ReLife and Trickster, as well as the Cardfight Vanguard series.
- 3xCUBE Studio. Producers In Charge: Yusuke Kubo, Kazuyoshi Iwasaki, Yasuji Nozaki. In charge of the Anpanman anime and series like Sweetness and Lightning.
- 8Pan. Producers In Charge: Yousuke Tsuruki, Ippei Takemura, Shusuke Katagiri. In charge of series like D. Gray Man Hallow and Zetman, as well as the Yowamushi Pedal franchise.
- Drowis Studio. Apparently a subdivision of Double Eagle, by producer Tomoki Iuchi. Produced Lupin III Goodbye Partner.
- Rogue Studio. Unknown producer. Assist the other studios.
The following production lines were dissolved:
- 777 Studio. The producer of this studio was Ryusuke Aoki. Produced Monkey Punch content.
- Po10tial Studio: Dissolved when the producer left from Telecom. Yu Kiyozono was the producer. Like 777, they were in charge of Monkey Punch works, produced the acclaimed Fujiko Mines series.
- Studio Saki Makura. Dissolved when merged with the main office, their produced was Masato Matsumoto. They were in charge of series like Brave 10.
Related Animators: Osamu Nabeshima, Hajime Kamegaki, Hideyuki Motohashi, Kazuhiro Ochi, Tomonori Sudo, Hirotoshi Takaya, Futoshi Higashide, Toshihiko Masuda, Shinichiro Minami, Takashi Kawaguchi, Akio Kawamura, Kumiko Shishido, Yoshiharu Shimizu, Yuko Iwasa, Mari Tominaga, Yuzo Aoki.
Home-Grown animators: Tomonori Kogawa, Takeo Kitahara, Kenji Kodama, Sachiko Kamimura
Trigger:
SSSS.GRIDMAN, 2018, Trigger, Dir. by Akira Amemiya
-Established on 2011, by former Gainax director Masahiko Otsuka, animator Hiroyuki Imaishi and producer Kazuya Matsumoto. Under Ultra Super Pictures.
-The staff present on the studio was mostly the base of Gainax productions on the late 2000s, with names like Yoh Yoshinari and Akira Amemiya being the core of the studio
-They started by doing collaborative works with A-1 and members of the USP group like Ordet, Sanzigen and Liden.
-They are always actively recruiting young passionate animators and creating original passion-projects anime
-They kept their original links with Gainax and with other former-Gainax studios like Khara, with the likes of Kazuya Tsurumaki, Takeshi Honda and Masayuki collaborating with them on a regular basis
Animators: Hiroyuki Imaishi, Yoh Yoshinari, Sushio, Akira Amemiya, Yusuke Yoshigaki, Yuka Shibata, Takafumi Hori, Mai Yoneyama, Yuto Kaneko, Masaru Sakamoto, Shuuhei Handa, Shota Sannomiya, Tetsuya Hasegawa, Hideki Nakagawa, Kengo Saito, Michel Sugimoto, Rie Ishige, Kai Ikarashi, Kana Yamaguchi, Yukina Kai, Mayumi Nakamura, Shiori Miyazaki, Masanobu Ishiyama, Hiroki Itai, Reo Itoyama
Related Animators: Nobutoshi Ogura, Daizen Komatsuda, Chikashi Kubota, Atsushi Nishigori, Toshiyuki Sato, Hiromi Taniguchi, Kazumasa Ishida, Naoki Hiramura, Emi Tamura, Nobuhiro Osada, Naoki Takeda, Yuki Yonemori, Keisuke Kojima, Kotaro Nakamori, Ikuo Geso
Home-Grown Animators: Kazuto Arai, Takumi Sunakohara
Nippon Animation:
Hyakko, 2008, Nippon Animation, Dir. by Michio Fukuda
-Koichi Motohashi, representative of Zuiyo Eizo, established it on 1975
-For a while, Toei Animation, Tatsunoko Production, Tokyo Movie and Eiken were their usual collaborators at a production level
-They produced the World Masterpiece Theater, a series of adaptations of classic western books, starting from 1975 as they succeded Zuiyo Eizo as the producers of the then named Calpis Children’s theater, the animation block got a series per year until 1997, where low quality, low ratings and lack of interest for funding them ended the block. On 2007, House Foods World tried to reignate it by producing adaptations of Les Miserables, The Orphans of Simitra and Before Green Gables, but on 2010, the block had been shutted down again due to continous lack of interest from audiences.
-They produce Chibi Maruko-Chan, one of the longest running anime ever
-Since the late 90s, they have been cruising through various legal problems from internal issues into the studio and missed pays of royalties to voice actors. Because of that, their production have decreased since entering the 2000s.
-Motohashi died from Myelodysplastic Syndrome. His daughter, Kazuko Ishikawa, has taken over the management of the studio
Animators: Yoshiharu Sato
Related Animators: Hayao Miyazaki, Isao Takahata, Yasuji Mori, Yoichi Kotabe
Home-Grown Animators: Masahiro Kase, Toshiaki Motoya
Nexus:
Comic Girls, 2018, Nexus, Dir. by Yoshinobu Tokumoto
-Established in 2012 by former A-1 Pictures producer Hiroshi Nakamura, with the studio also being connected by him to Asterism.
-It’s a small company of around 20 people, but still have departaments for animation, inbetween animation, finishing, photography, etc, doing the whole workflow from themselves
-Their anime often present very small credit lists, with, depending on the producer at charge, also presenting very impressive animator showings for individual animators, often as solo or duo-trio animator episodes.
-Their first anime was Wakaba Girl, but it was a short anime. Their first full-lenght anime was Comic Girls, who had a good enough scheduling to be completely finished before the broadcast.
-Overall, they are a very exciting prospect on anime production, and if they can expand more, they will be very interesting to follow on years to come
Animators: Usaku Myouchin, Emi Yamazaki, Natsumi Kikuchi
Related Animators: Kazuya Nakanishi, Yasuyuki Noda, Daiichi Kitahara, Ayako Saito, Masaharu Watanabe
TYO Animations (formerly called Hal Film Maker)
-Established in 1993. Became a part of TYO Group in 2003.
-They start doing subcontract work by taking over in 1999 of Studio Junio’s works and staff. So, at their beginning, they were deeply connected to Junio’s acquaintances.
-There are many times when they subcontract work to other Kansai studios like Wanpack, Ordet and Elle.
-During the late 2000s, there was a major staff leak to Satelight and other studios.
-Between 2007 and 2009, they completed the merging with Yumeta and TYO, closing down and being renamed as TYO Animations.
Former Animators: Tetsuya Kumagai, Hideaki Nakano, Ryota Watanabe, Masaya Nozaki, Akihiro Taniguchi, Satoshi Hata, Katsunobu Ito, Masatoshi Niwa, Masashi Wakayama , Mitsuhiro Iwasaki, Toshiyuki Arai, Yukihiro Kobayashi, Mariko Kawamoto
Home-Grown Animators: Sachiko Takimoto, Miho Ogawa, Tomokazu Sugimura, Shunta Sakamoto, Ayumi Miyamoto, Ayashi Suzuki, Katsuhiro Kumagai, Yuu Kobayashi, Mutsumi Nakata, Tomoe Tanaka, Kota Ito, Yoshiyuki Okubo
Former Related Animators: Itsuko Takeda, Michinori Chiba, Usami Koichi, Yuko Kusumoto, Nobuhito Akada, Junichi Hayakawa, Ikuko Ito, Tatsumi Tamagawa, Keiji Goto, Megumi Kadonosono, Makoto Koga, Masahiro Aizawa, Mieko Hosoi, Ryosuke Tanigawa, Satoru Fujimoto, Koichiro Ueda, Hiroyuki Kaido, Miki Yoshikawa
Passione:
-Founded by Kazuhiro Saito, who had previous anime experience as productor desk on Studio Fantasia, but spent far away from the industry during a long time before founding the studio
-They are known by their adult heavy-ecchi works
Related Animators: Makoto Uno, Sayaka Koiso, Keiji Ishihara, Masaaki Sakurai, Masahide Yanagisawa, Izuro Ijuin, Takeo Takahashi, Kazuyuki Ueda
Studio Pierrot:
-Founded in 1979 by anime director Yuuji Nunokawa, to produce the anime The Mysterious Journey Of Nils, with the backing of his former studio Tatsunoko Production.
-In the 80’s, the company began to conduct a copyright management business aiming to become a studio that not only produces anime but also invest on their creation
-In 1983, they produced the first OVA ever, Dallos, and started the OVA boom of the 80s.
– They used to work for Fuji TV, but now they work mainly on TV Tokyo series.
– At the time of establishment, it was very rare a studio launched by animators and directors, with directors belonging as employees. Therefore, the power of their directors is strong, and there have many auteur directors emerging from the studio through the years.
-Personal connections of the series directors usually make the bulk of the staff for long-running series. In the early days, Tatsunoko and Deen-based staff were deeply connected with them.
-In addition to the production line called «Pierrotism», which mainly worked on movies, their subsidary for KA and finishing Pierrot Fukuoka was closed on 2012.
-On 2009, they founded Pierrot Plus to manage their usual outsourcing to a few key studios like Mouse and Jiwoo Animation. Their work as treated like Pierrot series, but are mainly completely outsourced.
-Former staff from the studio have founded studios like Seven Arcs, Arcturus, feel. and Studio Guts
Animators: Tadakatsu Yoshida, Yoshiyuki Kishi, Masahiro Neriki, Yuichi Endo, Hiroki Takagi, Masaharu Tada, Hidehiko Okano, Retsu Ohkawara, Rinako Nishihara, Ichiro Uno, Yoko Suzuki, Hiroyuki Yamashita, Masayuki Koda, Mifumi Tomita, Mika Okubo, Kumiko Tokunaga, Emi Tomita, Tatsuya Koyanagi, Toshiro Fujii, Seung Ah Han, Katsuya Yamada, Yukiko Masuda, Eri Taguchi
Home-Grown Animators: Tsuneo Ninomiya, Noboru Furuse, Takeshi Osaka, Toshiya Niidome, Akemi Kobayashi, Yasuko Miyazaki, Koji Motoyama, Takenori Mihara, Masaaki Nishida, Kiichi Takaoka, Ayumi Nakamura, Ryoichi Nakao, Masaya Irahara, Yoshinori Tokiya, Shinya Ohira, Shiro Kudaka, Masami Shimoda, Katsuichi Nakayama, Haruo Miyagawa, Shinya Takahashi, Hiroto Tanaka, Masayuki Kobayashi, Mari Kitayama, Yasunari Nitta, Tatsuo Yamada, Shigeyuki Kimishima, Kanji Nishida, Miyuki Ueda, Ryoji Ikematsu, Shinji Saruwatari, Eitaro Abe, Atsushi Komori, Takato Fukuyama, Atsushi Ogata, Teruaki Tokumaru, Mamoru Otake, Ryuta Yanagi, Kumiko Tokunaga, Kayano Nishizawa, Yasuto Nishikata, Shigeki Kawai, Hideto Tanaka, Asuka Mamezuka, Naoki Kobayashi
Related Animators: Motosuke Takahashi, Asami Endo, Masahito Yamashita, Shinsaku Kozuma, Akiyuki Shinbo, Yuji Moriyama, Yoshiharu Fukushima, Takafumi Hayashi, Osamu Kobayashi, Tomomi Mochizuki, Hirotaka Kinoshita, Masaya Onishi, Kyoko Matsubara, Atsuko Inoue, Atsushi Wakabayashi, Tetsuya Nishio, ToshiyukiTsuru, Hirofumi Suzuki, Tokuyuki Matsutake, Keiko Shimizu, Masahiko Murata, Shinji Sato, Manabu Fukazawa, Tetsuto Saito, Yasuhiko Kanezuka, Chiyuki Tanaka, Masaru Hyodo, Hidetsugu Ito, Hirotsugu Kawasaki, Hiromi Okazaki, Kumiko Horikoshi, Masashi Kudo, Tomomi Ishikawa, Seiko Asai, Zenjirou Ukulele, Masaharu Watnaabe, Yoshiharu Shimizu, Tadashi Matsuzaki, Tadashi Fukuda, Hiroaki Imaki, Naoyuki Asano, Kazumasa Orii, Makoto Shimojima, Daisuke Tsumagari, Hiromi Yoshinuma, Anna Yamaguchi, Yuri Ichinose, Reiko Sato, Yuko Matsui, Manabu Kurihara, Masashi Yamada , Momoko Nagakawa, Tomomi Yabuki, Atsuki Shimizu, Narihito Sekikawa, Kanchi Suzuki
P.A Works:
-It was founded on Toyama in the year 2000 by former Production I.G producer Kenji Hirokawa.
-Their initial name was Etsu Douga Honpo, and on 2002, they changed their name to P.A Works
-At the beginning of their life as a studio, they mostly were subcontracted for Production I.G and Bones, their first work as main producers was True Tears, on 2008
-Kenji Hirokawa retired from production after the making of their first movie Maquia -When The Promised Flower Blooms-
-A young animator complained about the studio’s wages via Twitter in 2016, getting them in trouble into the anime community, the animator complained the bad wages of the studio and that they required in-between animators that hadn’t graduate after three years to pay for their own desk, resulting on a exploitative, humillating system that forced animators to quit if they were not considered good enough. They did a completely insencere apology on their web-site and the animator’s account was suspended shortly after, giving the company a bad name on the anime community. Later the company adopted an hourly wage system, that did not improve the wage structure of the company.
-They had many in-house animators and directors since their beginning, with a solid studio identity, having recently produced fully in-house series like Uchoten Kazoku and Uma Musume Pretty Derby.
-Kenji Hirokawa is deeply connected with Toshiyuki Inoue, asking him to do key animator for the studio most compromised series and movies like Uchoten Kazoku, Shirobako, Maquia, etc. They even released the «Uchoten Kazoku Inoue Toshiyuki Art Book», so, future animators can learn from Inoue’s animation techniques and time sheets, that included a DVD with commentary on it.
-Since Horikawa’s retirement, the new produced is Mitsuru Tsuji.
Animators: Masayuki Yoshihara, Asuka Kojima, Yuji Miyashita, Hiromi Makino, Kazuko Amano, Yurie Oogashi, Yuki Akiyama, Yasuo Fujii, Kousuke Kawazura, Noboru Sugimitsu, Kanami Sekiguchi, Yuriko Ishii
Related Animators: Tadashi Hiramatsu, Toshiyuki Inoue, Ayumi Nishihata, Kayoko Nabeta
feel.:
-Makoto Takigasaki, former Studio Pierrot producer, founded it on 2002 with Yoichiro Uesaka et al. They are a sister studio to ZEXCS.
-From the following year, with Munenori Nawa and others as episode directors, and the animation and finishing departments established, they started to produce immediately.
-There are many animators that have flowed between them and J.C Staff, and viceversa, as well as the Series Directors and Animation Directors that they both share.
-In 2015, they moved to Koganei. Assez Finaud Fabric, the main company for Zexcs finishing, photography and editing, started to work with them and co-produce their series. Nowadays, Zexcs does KA and 2nd KA for most of their productions and Assez Finaud Fabric is in charge of finishing, photography, CG and editing.
-They also have a great relation with ufotable, with ufotable often doing KA and 2nd KA for feel. and viceversa.
-Their series usually have an stable production, very appreciated about their moe girls drawings. Since the 2013, they held «Croquis Meetings» where an external animator, ZEXCS, and the original author of the work participate, in order to maintain the high quality of the work
-In recent years, Ryo Araki and Tetsuya Takeuchi have joined as main animators for a lot of their works, leading to improvements on quality
Animators: Shinichi Tatsuta, Yuko Kanai, Ayaka Tsujikami, Yui Fujii, Yoshihiro Hiramane, Saori Tagashira, Satomi Kamata, Eiichiro Furuyama, Saki Yanagawa
Related Animators: Naoto Hosoda, Munenori Nawa, Kazuyuki Matsubara, Kazuhisa Nakamura, Etsuko Sumimoto, Gou Suzuki, Motoaki Sato, Kuniaki Masuda, Noriko Shimazawa, Ryo Araki, Tetsuya Takeuchi
Home-Grown Animators: Kazuhiro Ota, Toshifumi Akai, Yuki Morishita, Hiroyuki Saita, Ryunosuke Murakami
Brains Base:
-They were founded in 1996 by Tokyo Movie producer Kazumitsu Ozawa. They started to produce Anime on 2000.
-Their work varies a lot depending on the director and animation producer on charge
-Since 2013, they have been constantly bleeding talent as their animator producers left one by one, creating studios like Shuka, Lapin Track and Platinium Vision, now they are a shell of a studio, a living dead that insists on breathing
Animators: Hiromasa Sato, Kentaro Matsumoto, Hideyuki Motohashi
Related Animators: Tetsuya Takeuchi, Koji Yabuno, Takao Asano, Haruo Okuno, Takahiro Chiba, Hideki Nakamichi, Masakazu Kawazoe, Tomotaka Shibyama, Keiichi Honda, Tomohiro Kishi, Tatsuo Yamada
Platinium Vision:
-Founded in 2016, former Brains Base producer Yu Oishi
-They are the Brains Base production department in charge of Aoharu x Kikanjuu
-Hideaki Nakano is their in-house series director
Production I.G:
-Founded in 1987 by ex-Tatsunoko Pro producer Mitsuhisa Ishikawa.
-They are known by their high-quality movies, and their reputation and recognition from movies like Ghost In The Shell on the occident is very high
-For many years, they were one of the studios in charge of Crayon Shin-Chan’s animation, but dropped off in 2014, with the studio formed by ex-Production I.G employees Production Good Book replacing them in 2015.
-On the words of animator Kyoji Asano, in the 90s, the basic salary at time of joining was 50,000 yen, around 460 dollars, and after that, he was paid for volume, producing 500 sheets a month during a three month period
-They have various production lines and a subsidary studio on Niigata
-Their production line of Fushu, Studio iG (now Signal.MD), had a division of 3DCG on IGFX
-In addition to the I.G Port companies, they have also a relationship with a long set of studio formed by former employees, like M.S.C, Good Book and P.A Works
-There have been a constant bleeding of producers since 2014, most of them leaving for 3DCGI anime studios, such as Hirasawa and Shibata for SANZIGEN, Nishimura for Sublimation and Ogami to Trislash
-The two companies behind the management of the studio are independent from it
-Their production departments are divided on two branches, plus Niigata and X, one of the known production managers is Ryuji Sanmoto, their divisions usually have a main creative leader behind them, Goto for the first, Kise for the second, Komurakata for Niigata and Tada for X.
-The following is a explanation on every current studio of I.G:
- I.G 3: Now called Signal .MD. Their producer in charge was Wataru Kurosawa, they have been active since 2011. Produced Shining Hearts and Giovanni’s Island
- I.G 4: Their producer in charge is Keiko Matsushita. Produced series like Robotic;Notes, Haikyuu and Ballroom E Youkoso
- I.G 5: Their producer in charge is Toru Kawaguchi. They produced most of Tsutomu Mizushima’s work at the studio, the Blood franchise and the Psycho Pass franchise
- I.G 6: Their produced in charge was Tetsuya Nakatake. Now they are part of Wit Studio.
- I.G 7: Their producer in charge was Yutaka Ogami. They produced Production I.G’s Crayon Shin-Chan outsourcing work, plus series like Moshi Dora and Suisei no Gargantia. Ogami left the company on 2015.
- I.G 8: Their produced in charge was Tomohiko Ishii. They focused on 3DCG works with Kenji Kamiyama. Their status is unknown.
- I.G 9: In charge of the Ghost In The Shell franchise. Tomotoshi Nishimura and Megumi Sato were their producers in charge. It was created for the production of Stand Alone Complex, they are pioneers on 3D Layouts and digital 3DCG Animation. Now their 3DCG division exists independenly as Sublimation. They were the main studio of Kenji Kamiyama, but he switched to Studio 8 more recently.
- X: Rui Kuroki is their producer in charge. Usually co-produces series with M.S.C, with Shunsuke Tada as Series Director.
- I.G ??: Their producer in charge is Shun Fukudome. Produced Mahoujin Guru Guru and Shingeki no Kyojin Chugakko
- I.G ?? 2: Their producer in charge is Koichi Bansho. Produced Joker Game and collaborated into the Psycho Pass franchise.
- I.G Niigata: Created when Kouji Komurakata returned to his home town of Niigata, I.G often sends a number of episodes of most of their series to be produced there as easy outsourcing.
- Wit Studio: Before their creation, they were Studio 6. By themselves, they have fourth divisions, the first one is their main studio, directed by Tetsuya Nakatake, that produced works like Shingeki no Kyojin and Owari no Seraph, their second and third are by Maiko Okada and Kei Otani, serving as a solitaire unit, produced the movies of Donten ni Warau, the fourth is Hiroya Hasegawa’s division, that produced series like Mahotsukai no Yome. They have been known constantly by their horrible production meltdowns.
- Signal .MD: Before their creation, they produced movies like Giovanni’s Island, while their 3DCG studio produced movies like Appleseed XII. Their producers are Yoshiki Sakurai, Fuminori Honda and Takehito Ueno. Their 2D section specializes on digital animation.
Division 1 Animators: Takayuki Goto, Kyoji Asano, Akiko Nagashima, Toru Okubo, Yasutaka Kubota, Toshiyuki Yahagi, Keita Matsumoto
Division 2 Animators: Kazuchika Kise, Hiroyo Izumi, Minoru Ueda, Mitsunobu Nakamura
Division 3 Animators: Tomohiro Shinoda, Yuki Sato
Niigata Animators: Kouji Komurakata, Ryota Niino, Fumi Morita
Wit Animators: Arifumi Imai, Takuma Ebisu, Yasuyuki Ebara, Rena Igawa, Norihiro Naganuma
Related Animators: Hiroyuki Okiura, Tetsuya Nishio, Masatsugu Arakawa, Hisashi Ezura, Atsushi Takeuchi, Naoyoshi Shiotani, Toshihisa Kaiya, Satoru Nakamura, Keigo Sasaki, Yasuhiro Aoki
Home-Grown Animators: Miyako Yatsu, Masahiro Sekiguchi, Shiho Takeuchi, Masahiro Sato, Akiko Nakamura, Katsuya Kikuchi, Genki Matsumoto, Tomotaka Shibayama, Kanami Sekiguchi, Shinichi Yokota, Izumi Seguchi, Yuuga Tokuno, Kiyu Katagiri, Shinji Itadaki
Niigata Home-Grown Animators: Keiichi Honda, Keiko Sato, Narihito Sekikawa
Production IMS:
-It was established in 2013 by ex-AIC producers Yoshiyuki Matsushima and Yusuke Yuki
-Their first anime was Inari, Konkon, Koi Iroha. Some of the main staff members of the series established TROYCA during the production and later became independent
-They have been known by the constant melting of some of their series, however, they have kept close connection with animators like Kazuto Arai, Satoshi Sakai and Naoki Miyajima
-Suddenly, the company started to fall apart on 2017, becoming the subsidary of a solar power company and reports of unpaid staff everywhere, leading to suspicions of poor management. They tried to restructure with the dissolution of their digital department to try balance the books, but they eventually declared bankrupcy on June of 2018, with the proceedings starting on October of that same year, the bankruptcy after only five years of existence shocked the companies involved with the studio
Former Animators: Hiroyuki Kobe, Hisashi Saito, Yoshihiro Watanabe, Shinpei Kobayashi, Keita Hagio, Yosuke Ito, Takao Takegami
Related Animators: Hiroyuki Furukawa, Kana Miyai, Satoshi Sakai, Takenori Tsukuma, Kazuto Arai, Naoto Nakamura, Asako Nishida, Masahiro Yamane, Narumi Kakinouchi, Kazuo Takigawa
White Fox:
-Founded in 2007 by OLM producer Gaku Iwasa, producer of the production line TEAM IWASA, that produced Utawarerumono.
-He is aiming for a safe space for animators and good working conditions. Most of the staff is made up from people that he already had connections from since his OLM days.
-The number of works per year as been established as an internal policity, to maintain the staff unestressed and focused on only one or two things at the time. Therefore, their schedules are consistently stables, altrough Steins;Gate’s episode were corrected until just before the very delivery of the episodes, making even Iwasa exhausted. They later restructured to handle better with 2-cour productions.
-Their website is updated frequentely indicating the staff that has a contract with the studio on exactly that time, something unusual for an anime studio
-There was a case of leaked setting material from Katanagatari via illegal access to their website
-They opened in 2016 a subsidary in Izukogen, Shizuoka, with the sole purpose of cultivating new animators, with less worries with the salary due to the cost of the living expenses being very low, with the own studio establishing dormitories. Furthermore, under the guidance of active animators from the studio, they aim to creative an ambient of friendly competitiviness on communal living where animators can develop naturally and eventually get to work for their main studio
Animators: Kazuhisa Nakamura, Taro Ikegami, Masahiko Nakata, Atsushi Itagaki, Ryosuke Kimiya, Nobuhiro Muto, Hiroyuki Hashimoto
Former Animators: Motoki Tanaka, Takashi Shiokawa, Naoto Hosoda, Tatsumi Fujii, Ikuo Yoshida, Kyuta Sakai, Daisuke Mataga
Bones:
-Established in 1998, by members of Sunrise 2nd Studio, that were just out of producting Bebop, along with producer Masahiko Minami, key creative figures like Toshihiro Kawamoto and Takahiro Komori followed him
-They have a reputation for impressive 2D Mecha animation and solid schedules and quality across their series. In particular, they showed a surprising high level of stability on 4-cour series like Fullmetal Alchemist, Soul Eater or Eureka Seven.
-They have their own photography department, Chappi being the most known member of it, specialized on doing the photography on EDs drawn by Norimitsu Suzuki
-Once, a table of studio’s data was made public on the internet, with information of unpublished works and personal information of various famous animators
-They established a bussiness alliance agreement with the video distribution service Netflix around 2017
-Below is each production line of Bones. It was consolidated into a new office in 2010.
- A: Their producer in charge is Naoki Amano. Their latest work is Shinichiro Watanabe’s Carol & Tuesday. Toshihiro Kawamoto and Koichi Hirokawa are big creative forces of this production line. They are consistently on good schedule, and when Bones do outsourced episodes to other studio, they are usually on charge.
- B: Their producer in charge is Masahiko Minami. Makoto Watanabe, the first producer, left for D, and Yuki Nagano, their second producer, recently left to found Studio Durian, so Minami stepped up to the task. Their latest work was Mob Psycho 100 II. They are usually the studio in charge of Bones big sakuga shows.
- C: Their producer in charge is Yoshihiro Oyabu. Their latest work is the third season of Boku no Hero Academia. Animators like Yutaka Nakamura, Yoshiyuki Ito and Norimitsu Suzuki are very regular staff on this line.
- D: Their producer in charge is Mari Suzuki, after their previous producers Makoto Watanabe and Noritomo Yonai left, the second one to create studio Lay-Duce and the first one to E. They are the second youngest production line. Their latest work was the third season of Bungou Stray Dogs. The staff seems to have many people related to Studio Hibari.
- E: Youngest production line. Their producer in charge is Makoto Watanabe. They were established for the Eureka Seven movies. They are the most consistent studio, arriving the animators at morning and leaving early at night. 80% of the animators of the production line are mechanical animators, commanded by mecha star Yasushi Muraki.
Animators: Toshihiro Kawamoto, Takahiro Komori, Koichi Horikawa, Hiroki Kanno, Yutaka Nakamura, Takashi Tomioka, Tsunenori Saito, Kenji Mizuhata, Yasuyuki Kai, Nekomataya, Nobuaki Nagano, Ayumi Kurashima, Iori Kudo, Akira Takeuchi, Kenta Yokoya, Arisa Hoshino, Takuma Nakamura, Yoshiyuki Ito, Yasushi Muraki, Jun Shibata, Hideki Kakita, Katsumi Terahigashi, Norimitsu Suzuki, Yasuhiro Irie, Kenichi Yoshida, Kazumi Inadome, Kumiko Takahashi, Takashi Kawaguchi, Atsushi Hasebe, Hiroshi Osaka (Late)
Home-Grown Animators: Atsuko Nozaki, Kengo Saito
Madhouse:
-Established in 1972, by Masao Maruyama, Osamu Dezaki, Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Shigeyuki Hayashi. The name is an acronym for three out the four of them MAruyama Dezaki Hayashi OsamU ShigEyuki. Yutaka Fujioka also backed the studio at their beginning, and most of their earlier works were co-produced with Tokyo Movie.
-Produced mainly OVAs series known by their impressive art direction and avant-grade directing techniques. Their first solo series as producers was 1989’s Yawara!
-During the final of the 90s and during the 2000s they focused on series by auteur directors like Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Satoshi Kon, Sunao Katabuchi and Mamoru Hosoda, as well as giving series to fascinating creators like Mitsuo Iso and Masaaki Yuasa, and giving anime to more niche manga propierties like Kaiji, studio was very well praised during all of the 2000s, with also a continuous fabric of talented directors like Hiroshi Hamasaki, Tetsuro Araki and Sayo Yamamoto. On the other hand, a lot of their series were mainly outsourced to korean studio DR. Movie, so it’s a mixed bag
-In the 2000s, there was a large number of talented directors and animators, but in 2010, after the bankruptcy and NTV’s buy-out of the studio, staff started escape the studio on a mass exodus of poor management. Of their four founders, the only one that remains on the studio is Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Shigeyuki Hayashi retired on 2012, Osamu Dezaki died on 2011 and Masao Maruyama established MAPPA on 2011 and then M2 on 2017.
-Their only talent left is sprinkled through Yuichiro Fukushi’s P series, mostly directed by Shingo Natsume
Animators: Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Takahiro Umehara, Kunihiko Sakurai, Kunihiko Hamada, Shigeru Fujita, Yoshinori Kanemori, Michiyo Suzuki, Satoshi Tasaki, Akiko Oshima, Kayo Sakazume, Keiko Fujii, Akane Oguchi
Related Animators: Akio Sugino, Manabu Ohashi, Yoshinori Kanada, Takashi Nakamura, Kazuo Takigawa, Nobumasa Shinkawa, Nobuteru Yuki, Hiroshi Hamasaki, Yutaka Minowa, Takahiro Yoshimatsu, Hiroshi Koujina, Shinji Otsuka, Kitaro Kosaka, Kumiko Takahashi, Michio Mihara, Masaaki Yuasa, Yasuomi Umetsu, Satoru Utsunomiya, Takuo Noda, Mieko Hosoi, Yuzo Sato, Hisashi Abe, Masaki Hyuga
Former Animators: Koji Morimoto, Atsuko Fukushima, Takeshi Koike, Ryutaro Nakamura, Tensai Okamura, Jiro Kanai, Norimitsu Suzuki, Kenji Hayama, Hiroshi Nagahama, Katsuya Asano, Shougo Furuya, Hideo Hayashi
MAPPA:
-Established by Madhouse’s Masao Maruyama in 2011 after departing the company. A few years after that, Manabu Otsuka became the president as Maruyama left MAPPA themselves to fund M2.
-Their first solo full-lenght anime was Zankyou no Terror, an high-scale production directed by Shinichiro Watanabe filled with a lot of industry’s brightiest talents
-Their movie In This Corner Of The World, directed by Sunao Katabuchi, won the Japanese Academy Award
-The Dreaming Machine, Satoshi Kon’s last movie, was on production at MAPPA as Maruyama moved it from Madhouse, trying to give body to the incomplete movie of the prodigious director. In an interview with Akiba Research Institute, Maruyama said that they decided to stop the production, leaving Kon’s final legacy in the air
-Since the 2016, they are divided in five production lines as the studio’s massive expansion on that year
- 1: All of the studio’s works were produced there before the division on 2016. Their latest work is Kakegurui xx.
- 2: A studio established to produce In This Corner Of The World.
- 3: Established in 2016. In charge of Kazuhiro Furuhashi’s series Altair and Dororo
- 4: Established in 2016. Focused on the Garo franchise.
- Sendai: A studio on Sendai was established on 2018
Related Animators: Kazuto Nakazawa, Hisashi Abe, Toshiyuki Kanno, Yuichiro Hayashi, Yuji Hosogoe, Sayo Aoi, Rie Nishimura, Seong Ho Park, Takayuki Sano, Takashi Igari, Masao Ebihara, Atsushi Wakabayashi, Naoyuki Onda, Kenji Hayama, Fumihide Sai, Manabu Akita
Manglobe (now Geno Studio):
-Founded in 2002 by ex-Sunrise producers Shinichiro Kobayashi and Takashi Kochiyama.
-They mainly worked a lot on original anime and adaptations of Weekly Shounen Sunday.
-Due to lack of animators, they start to fall apart on a combination of lack of anime being made and the cost of production skyrocketed because the amount of outsourcing required, they couldn’t produce anime because they didn’t have animators and then they couldn’t produce anime because they went bankrupt, until they finally declared said bankrupcy on September 2015.
-Their last TV series was Gangta., which was produced while on financial turnboil, resulting on some very very bad melting drawings all over the series and the discontinuing of the blu-rays. A movie that they were also producing at the time, Gyakutsatsu Kikan, was interrupted and delayed.
-On November 2015, Fuji TV producers Koji Yamamoto and Noritomo Yonai funded Studio Geno, that served as the initial step for planning company Twin Engine, with most of Manglobe staff being carried out to Geno to finish the production of Gyakutsatsu Kikan
Related Animators: Akane Umezu, Yoshihiro Oka, Toshie Kawamura, Hideto Komori, Yo Sato, Mitsutoshi Sato, Sachiko Sugimoto, Jun Soga, Kotomi Deai, Kazuto Nakazawa, Manabu Nii, Emi Hirano, Naoaki Hojo, Tomomi Mochizuki
Milipensee:
-Founded in 2013 by ex-Gainax producer Naoko Shiraishi.
-All of Milipensee’s work is directed by her husband Shin Itagaki.
-Known by being the responsible of the animation of the Teekyu series
-Their first full lenght series was Wake Up Girls! Next Chapter. They had 9 key animators, including Shin Itagaki, with the work being entirely in-house. However, the character animation started to fall apart after the third episode, and the production complications started to be noticeable for the shortscuts that they employed to hide it. Eventually, they had to do a compilation episode to reorder the schedule, and somehow all 12 of the episode were animated only using in-house animators. That showed that they were still not up to the task of producting a full-lenght series on their own.
-And i won’t even touch the whole Berserk thing…
Animators: Hiromi Kimura, Miyuki Sugawara, Maiko Miyake, Eiji Toshima, Daichi Kobayashi, Tomohiro Uchida, Toshiaki Uchida, Hikari Yamada, Kentaro Ishikawa, Ryota Nakajima, Yoshiya Sugaya, Daiki Sato, Sumio Shinagawa, Wataru Shibata, Keiko Miyano, Aika Sugiyama, Shin Itagaki
ufotable:
-Founded in 2000 by former Telecom producer Hikaru Kondo.
-They started to be known by using Claymation on their endings, but now it has been dropped off
-The company has animation, finishing, art and digital divisions completely in-house, and their works since 2010 are focused on being produced completely in-house. In addition, in-house members participate on the song writing and composition of their scores.
-They have participated in the production comitee for almost all of their productions since 2006
-They have wide personal connections with young freelance animators, also, they started to recruit heavily since 2016
-There are many former AIC animators on their initial members. Originally, it was a few people gathered in 4 tatami and half rooms animating, now it’s a large company with over 200 employees.
-They are keen to develop local human resources, establishing an studio in Kondo’s birthplace Tokushima. In works after 2014, they often used completely home-grown staff as their main staff (directors, character designers, etc)
-They created a great studio ambient and community, key animators can step up as teachers for in-between animators, so do senior artists of the fine arts department making their juniors practice hand-drawn art to perfect their craft before moving to digital, key animators are often active on other departments as well as one on the recruiting department, etc. Even junior key animators and in-between animators have a hand on correcting and designing.
-200 yen (1.84 dollars) per cut to newcomers, they produce something on the range of 200 sheets per month. 20,000 yen (184 dollars) of house allowance. They used to have a fixed salary of 100,000 (920 dollars), now they pay by cut.
-It is forbidden working while listening to music and watching TV. They mantain a strict control over time cards to impide overworking.
-They manage the Ufotable Cafe, for the purpose of interaction with fans in several places across the country, as well as collaboration cafes with other companies. At the cafe, you can see reproductions of the production materials and raw key animation used on their anime.
-Their producer and representative is Hikaru Kondo. He also works as director, scriptwriter and sound director. He is in charge of the sound direction of all of ufotable’s anime since 2016.
-Their photography department has a very distinct style idiosincratic from their main photography director Yuichi Terao
Animators: Tomonori Sudou, Masayuki Kunihiro, Go Kimura, Atsushi Ogasawara, Shinsuke Yasuda, Shun Yamaoka, Koji Akiyama, Touko Uchimura, Ricardo Shimbakuro, Shogo Fujiwara, Satoshi Takahashi, Akane Okabe, Aoi Okabe, Mieko Ogata, Masato Nagamori, Takuro Takahashi, Mitsuru Obunai, Haruo Sotozaki, Akira Matsushima, Takuya Nonaka, Takahiro Miura
Related Animators: Tetsuya Takeuchi, Atsushi Itagaki, Keiichi Sasajima, Teiichi Takiguchi, Yoshitaka Kouno, Nozomu Abe
Former Related Animators: Jun Shibata, Seiya Numata, Toshimitsu Kobayashi, Hirokazu Kojima, Soichiro Matsuda, Hokuto Sakiyama, Shinichiro Minami, Mutsumi Kadekaru, Katsumi Terahigashi
Liden Films:
-Established in 2012 by three producers: Hiroaki Matsuura from SANZIGEN, Tetsuro Satomi from Barnum Studio and Tadao Iwaki from Shaft. They were created as a stepping stone for the holding company and studio alliance Ultra Super Pictures
-They have studios in Kyoto and Osaka, that regularly receive ex-animators from Kyoto Animation and GoHands respectively, the leading studios of those cities. They also established a Fukaya studio in Saitama, and they are advancing to establish more divisions in different regions of Japan.
-A lot of their members come from Yamakan’s studios Ordet, after a massive exodus from Ordet to Liden on 2013.
Animators: Maimu Matsushima, Shinobu Yoshioka, Rika Ota, Haruka Sagawa, Kazunari Araki, Nao Naitou, Kazuya Sakamoto, Shota Taniguchi, Nana Kunimitsu, Ayana Nishimura, Natsuya Ishida, Shuhei Miwa, Ayano Miwa, You Himuro, Yuki Hino, Yui Yokoyama, Shinya Kokaji
Lerche / Studio Hibari:
-Founded in 1979 by Tsuchida Pro producer Hiroyoshi Mitsunobu and his wife, Sachiko. They started doing outsourcing work for Mitsunobu’s former studio.
-It has been family managed since then, when Mitsunobu fell ill in 1985, his wife, Sachiko Mitsunobu, was appointed president, and his son, Seiji Mitsunobu, just graduated from college, managing director. Since 2002, they have been appointed chairman (chairwomen?) and president respectively
-In 2011, they created the production brand Lerche, not separated from Hibari, focused on the production line of Yuji Higa. Currently, it has become so succesful that almost everything they produce is branded after Lerche, but just if Higa has a connection to it
-Seiji Kishi has been used to build a directing brand to accompany the new production brand Lerche with the years
Affiliation Animator: Katsusuke Konuma, Yoshimi Agata, Tomoko Iwasa, Keiko Kurosawa, Mayumi Watanabe
Related Animators: Ryouko Amisaki, Ryozo Sugiyama, Yuji Moriyama
Home-Grown Animators: Makoto Yoshizaki, Ken Ueno, Yoshitaka Koyama, Toshiaki Motoya, Shuichi Ito, Hiroshi Ogawa, Keiko Ito, Shigeru Fujita, Masaya Ohnishi, Akio Watanabe, Satoshi Hata, Taisuke Iwasaki, Takamitsu Kondo, Naoto Hosoda, Seiya Numata, Tetsuo Hirakawa, Ryozo Sugiyama, Ikuo Yamakado, Masako Tashiro, Yumiko Hara
Lay-Duce:
-Founded in 2013 by former Bones producer Noritomo Yonai. They exists as a part of the Twin Engine umbrella that Yonai has established along with Fuji TV producer Koji Yamamoto.
-They often produce series with C2C.
Bibliography:
https://www18.atwiki.jp/sakuga/pages/2015.html
https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A1%E3%82%A4%E3%83%B3%E3%83%9A%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B8
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