While most anime studios are scattered indistinctly in Tokyo, regional branches and rural studios with distinct cultures are becoming more common. Let’s dig into how their bonds with local communities develop, their affinity for mentorship, and KyoAni’s ever-evolving training systems. Although it’s not likely to get much attention from broader audiences, Kyoto Animation’s latest project embodies the trends at the studio too perfectly not to stop and examine it. Earlier this month, the city of Uji unveiled the third chapter of their collaboration with KyoAni: a beautiful commercial to promote t ..read more

Both in the original manga and in its anime adaptation, Yubisaki to Renren / A Sign Of Affection combines extensive research and ingenious creative choices to respectfully, charmingly depict the world of its deaf protagonist. This is the story of a beautifully abnormal production. Upon starting Yubisaki to Renren / A Sign of Affection, we’re immediately invited to Yuki’s world. Her reality is insulated from that of most people’s, but that doesn’t make her life gloomy. She enjoys cute fashion as much as she likes getting a good discount on the clothes she buys, and she’s got friends to share th ..read more

Outsourcing and various delegations of duties have become tools for TV anime to barely survive, but with its team’s clear vision and enviable contacts, Dungeon Meshi has been able to alternate between external production excellence and Trigger’s explosive in-house ambition. The February 29th issue of Weekly Famitsu includes a lengthy feature about Dungeon Meshi, perhaps best known for the drawing where author Ryoko Kui immortalized the elves from Western RPGs that influenced her; can’t say any of them can match Marcille’s fat ears, but those are high standards. That issue also happens to conta ..read more

Dungeon Meshi‘s anime is the product of the shifting tides at studio Trigger, of a long relationship between the involved parties and the source material, and of a new director who can’t silence his inner fan but still wants to breathe actual life into Ryoko Kui’s charming world. Studio TRIGGER is changing—perhaps not radically, but enough that the outdated perception of the company demands to be updated. Presentism is inevitable in anime fandoms, as most people will only stick around cartoon discourse (even if they continue enjoying the cartoons themselves) for a few years, before leaving and ..read more

It’s time for a last look at 2023 with the Sakugabooru Animation Awards. We’ve gathered directors, animators, designers, producers, and passionate fans to share their favorite, most resonant works of animation across the last year – and other years, frankly! In short: Sakugabowl time! Entries: — Franziska van Wulfen — ちな — jamal — Kerorira — Relux — Blou — Fede — Akihiko Sudo/Kasen — Geth — Ken Yamamoto — Maki — Natasha — Kevin Franziska van Wulfen Character Designer, Animator, Vtuber, Astarion Liker [Twitter] [Sakugabooru Tag] Best Episode: Scott Pilgrim Takes Off #03 Scott Pilgrim‘s stre ..read more

In today’s collection of writing topics, we dive into the neat staffing changes at Kyoto Animation to further improve working conditions, how Spy x Family‘s co-production has further adjusted (and struggled) to accommodate a big workload, and the production of some lovely Pokemon web series. Kyoto Animation staffing and working conditions news KyoAni’s exceptional productions tend to give us plenty of excuses to write about their works on this site, so in the grand scheme of things, they’re anything but overlooked when it comes to the Sakuga Blog. Given how much they’ve reduced their output, h ..read more

Overtake! wasn’t first conceived as studio Troyca’s 10th anniversary project, but over many years of development, it came to naturally embody the studio’s current strengths: a beautiful mix of grounded, naturalistic writing with punchy, confident delivery. For an animation studio’s anniversary project to truly represent their unique culture, you’d expect to require a very deliberate planning process. By being conscious of that particular goal since the start, you could draft a narrative within familiar territory, design the animation according to the stylistic principles of your team, and even ..read more

While fans tend to think about production circumstances as black and white, Frieren exemplifies what success tends to look like in the real world: a result of resourceful management, delegation of the right tasks to the right people, and ingenuous solutions to tricky situations. It’s not a secret that the internet hates nuance as much as it loves false dichotomies. Recent events have been brewing a myopic discourse around anime production, where the two popular titles of the moment must necessarily represent opposite ends of a black-and-white situation; if Jujutsu Kaisen S2 is such a poorly pl ..read more

Hayao Miyazaki’s storytelling is built upon the dreamlike, empowering physics of the animation that builds his worlds. This offers a fascinating contrast with his latest film The Boy and the Heron, one noticeably burdened with weights—physical, psychological, of life, and of Ghibli’s legacy. The first scene in The Boy and the Heron culminates in a bewitching, haunting fire animated by Shinya Ohira. His pencil, more adept than anyone else’s at twisting reality into an expressionist dreamscape, captures the blurry, chaotic experience of a child losing his mother amidst World War II bombings—maki ..read more

It’s time to talk about the somewhat confusing, misunderstood shifting labor and creative dynamics of Spy x Family’s co-production, how Kusuriya no Hitorigoto is able to elevate from a solid adaptation to an exceptional one, and more! The Evolving Co-Production of Spy x Family The shared duties between Studio WIT and CloverWorks to bring Spy x Family to life have always been a topic of interest for us, hence why we wrote a lengthy article explaining the circumstances that led to this co-production; those being that WIT, the studio that the project was initially pitched to, was so busy it led t ..read more