How is ANIME made?
written by Akash Mounabhargav
Anime. This industry has been a phenomenal field of entertainment for decades. The Japanese style of visual storytelling is unparalleled.
Anime made it’s debut during the late 1900s. The first large scale Animation studio was TOEI Animation, established in the 1950s, still active today. They produced some of the earliest animated films and later went on to produce blockbuster animes like Dragon Ball (1986), One Piece (1999), Sailor Moon (1992), Digimon (1999), and Astro Boy (1963).
The way of animation making has been changed and developed throughout the decades. With primitive methods like flip frame animation during the initial years, to complex 3D composition and rendering today. Anime has undergone a significant upgrade.
So,
Everything starts with an IDEA, and Anime is no different. In this case, it all starts with MANGA.
Manga is the form of comics in Japan. It’s been a very successful enterprise for a very long time. This is the origin of Anime.
Manga writers come up with stories for their manga, develop it, structure it and sketch it. After a decent first draft (GENKO), they publish it throughout Japan. If the Manga receives massive interest, it attracts Publishing companies (like SHONEN JUMP). The publishing company offers them a weekly release for the Manga to increase it’s popularity and business. This is called RENSAI. Manga writers thrive for RENSAI status.
The Manga then reaches a bigger audience and gains more popularity. When the manga gains a certain reputation, it attracts Animation Studios (like UFOTABLE, MAPPA). The studios are always on the lookout for good and popular manga to adapt it into animation.
The studios do some research on the Manga, and then eventually pitch the Writers and their parent publishing companies. An Anime adaptation is always welcome by writers and publishers because it will eventually boost sales of the Manga.
When the deal is made, the manga officially enters into anime production.
As the production begins, the studio hires animators, directors, editors, colorists and all the other people required to produce the anime. Usually the artists and animators are freelanced throughout the industry, but huge studios like MAPPA often have artists and animators as permanent employees working for them.
The first step of an anime is studying the original MANGA and creating storyboards (E-CONTE), which will eventually piece up together into episodes. This is done by the Directors. The original writers of the MANGA assist the directors to develop the script for the episodes.
The directors are divided into Episode directors and a Series Director. The Episode directors are usually assigned a single or at max, 2 episodes at a time, while the Series director supervises the entire production of the anime. The directors create the E-CONTE which are the building blocks of the original animation. This contains all the information and events such as the dialogue time, locations, character movements in the episode from the beginning to the end.
Storyboards are meant to be rough and quick, so that the next important step can start, that is KEY-ANIMATION (GENGA).
After the E-CONTE is reviewed by the series director and gets the stamp of approval, it is passed on to the KEY-FRAME ARTISTS. They sketch each and every detail of the character emotion and movement which will eventually make it to the actual animation. All the sketches which make it to the final cut will have the approval of the episode director. The work is equally divided between several artists to reduce workload because a single episode of animation can have up to 15,000 key frame sketches! It’s one of the longest process in the whole production.
After the Key-Frame animation is finally complete, the sketches are reviewed as a whole and sent into the next department, IN-BETWEEN animation (DOUGA).
All the key frames, when kept and played together, look like a moving image, but they lack the smoothness of movement and flow. This problem is solved by the in-between artists.
In-betweening is a process in animation that involves generating intermediate frames, called in-betweens, between two keyframes. The intended result is to create the illusion of movement by smoothly transitioning one image into another. This process is the heart of the smooth flow of movements in the characters you actually see in the final cut.
After the in-betweens are wrapped, the final key-frames are later passed on to the coloring departments, where they add tones, shades and color to the characters to make them look sharper and realistic.
As the coloring process goes on, the BACKGROUNDS are also developed parallelly to facilitate the pace of the production. Backgrounds are a really important part as they depict locations and scenes of the anime.
Backgrounds were painted by hand in the past, but now, it’s a completely digital process.
After all these steps are complete, the final, colored key-frames are synced with the drawn backgrounds to produce actual footage, which consists of several thousands of key-frames.
As the frames come together, the fancy part begins. VISUAL EFFECTS.
Visual effects bring all the frames to life by giving it a whole new dimension and feel. A Blast of fire, A thunder attack, all these effects are produced using complex tools like Adobe After Effects, Blender and other software.
After some other finishing touches to the backgrounds, color, 3D Composting, camera angles, perspectives and whatnot, the final frames are ready. This will be passed on to the editing department where they finally piece the frames together, add music, subtitles and other related effects. By this point, all the video output is finally complete.
Now comes the fun part, voicing the characters. There are talented voice artists all over Japan who have excelled in this industry for a long time, voicing all the different characters in anime. They are chosen by the directors and finally made to deliver their voice for their respective characters.
After the audio output is ready, the anime is finally complete! The anime will get release dates, the studio will air the anime through channels all over the world.
This whole process requires immense skill, patience and hard work. Anime has been inspiring millions all over the world and the industry just keeps getting better day by day. I hope this innovation continues till the end of time.
Arigato Gozaimasu.
