Do anime events have room for creators? – Interview with Koji Takeuchi
The Annecy International Animation Film Festival is a place of many little pleasures, and one of them is to meet with Kouji Takeuchi, a pillar of the anime industry, and learn a little bit more of Studio Telecom's lore, which you can read more about in our previous...
From Yoshinori Kanada to Jujutsu Kaisen, 40 years of action animation – Shinsaku Kôzuma Long Interview
Shinsaku Kôzuma is among the greatest action animators in Japan. From his beginnings in the industry in the late 70s, he has been a witness and an actor in some of the most important works in anime history: in-betweener on Galaxy Express 999, key animator on Urusei...
The history of Studio Dove: Studio Sunrise’s hidden trump card – Nobuyoshi Nishimura Long Interview
If you've watched any Sunrise anime from the 1980s or 1990s, chances are you've encountered Nobuyoshi Nishimura’s work or become aware of his name. As an animator and animation director, he was one of the core members of studio Dove, an outsourcing company mostly...
Colors and cinematography in anime – Interview with Death Note director Tetsurô Araki
As the director of cult works such as Death Note, Highschool of the Dead, and Attack on Titan seasons 1 to 3, Tetsurô Araki is one of the biggest names in the anime industry. In recent years, he has had many occasions to get his name out, from the movie Bubble to the...
From unions to Doraemon – Interview with Éclat Animal’s Toshiyuki Honda
Toshiyuki Honda’s name may not be familiar to many anime fans, but he is the very definition of a veteran, one of those people who have supported the anime industry for decades. He started his career in 1969 in the genre-defining sports anime Star of the Giants and...
Takeshi Honda’s The Boy and the Heron – Long Interview
Nicknamed “Master” since his early days in animation, Takeshi Honda is one of anime’s greatest artists. After a brief period at the studio Atelier Giga, he spent most of the 1980s and 1990s at studio Gainax, where he worked on its most iconic productions: Gunbuster,...
The origins and legacy of the webgen, anime’s rock’n’roll – Long interview with Ryo-Timo
In the mid-2000s, a group of three young animators were making waves in the anime industry: Ryo-Timo, Ken’ichi Kutsuna, and Shingo Yamashita. Nicknamed the “web-generation”, they had started as amateur animators on the Web before entering the animation industry, where...
Akihiko Yamashita’s The Boy and the Heron – Long Interview
If any animator could be said to have defined the look of Studio Ghibli films in the last 20 years, it would, without a doubt, be Akihiko Yamashita. First only a key animator on Spirited Away in 2001, he was immediately promoted to animation direction on Howl’s Moving...
The One Piece anime revolution – Interview with Keiichi Ichikawa, One Piece’s chief animation director [Japan Expo 2023]
In July of this year, two of the most important members of the history of the One Piece anime series were invited to Japan Expo. Eisaku Inoue, an animation director who worked on some of the most memorable episodes ever since the second episode of the series, and...
Anime’s present and future – Interview with Terumi Nishii and Ayano Fukumiya
For some years now, awareness of problems within the Japanese animation industry has been growing, both within Japan and overseas. Things have accelerated since the pandemic, with these topics being addressed increasingly frequently. There are two causes for this: the...
Challenges of creating an anime company – Interview with Misu Yamaneko
During the 2023 edition of the Annecy International Animation Festival, a peculiar person was browsing the MIFA, the business area of the fest. This young girl, who could have easily been mistaken for a cat, was speaking perfect Japanese with every artist, producer,...
Interview with Shin’ichirô Watanabe [Niigata International Animation Film Festival 2023]
While at the Niigata International Film Festival earlier this year, we had the chance to cross paths with the famous anime director Shin'ichirô Watanabe. This is not the first time we met with him, as one of the very first interviews posted on fullfrontal.moe was an...