Our yearly animation awards have once again gathered animators, directors, producers, writers, translators, fans, and everything in between to pick the greatest contributions to anime and the world of animation in general for the year 2021—enjoy!
Makoto Shinkai’s modern work is defined by its immediate circumstances to a larger degree than most people realize, be it the themes he decides to tackle or the finesse in the delivery that depends on the whims of the industry. This is how they affected Your Name, Weathering with You, and even his new film Suzume no Tojimari.
Anime’s production schedules, the wellbeing of its creators, and the quality of their work are deeply interconnected. It’s a complex balance fraught with misunderstandings, and even lies by exploitative companies protecting the marketability of their products.
The Fall 2021 anime season is frontloaded with a few truly exceptional creative efforts, then chockful of titles with interesting teams having to brawl with this industry’s circumstances. Let’s dive deep into a season that, for the good and the bad, is very representative of anime’s current state.
Let’s dedicate a final look at Maidragon‘s second season and its role in KyoAni’s gradual rebuild—the why and how they made a beautiful show with a smaller team than it takes to animate an average episode of anime nowadays.
KyoAni’s most renowned director Naoko Yamada left the studio she had dedicated her entire career to and is now directing Heike Monogatari at Science Saru—a studio in the midst of labor and creative turmoil. So, what does that mean for all the involved parties?
The upcoming Stone Ocean adaptation marks the return of one of the most brilliant Jojo directors, so there has been no better time for a long retrospective of the show’s production, with a special emphasis on the directorial team that truly makes it a bizarre adventure.
The second episode of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S happens to embody some ongoing changes to Kyoto Animation’s inner workings: forced to adapt to the circumstances after the tragedy exactly two years ago, while also protecting the young talent they want to continue training. More than ever before, the studio works as one now.
Mobile Suit Gundam Hathaway is shaping up to be an excellent film trilogy, a collective effort by creators who approach realism from their own angle coupled with stellar character acting—but how come such a high profile work by one of the remaining bastions of 2D mechanical animation went the 3D mecha route?
Maidragon is back. KyoAni is back—in more ways than one, having given free rein to the next generations of creators trained under the studio’s unstoppable mentorship system. All these efforts shared a rallying cry that the studio altogether has adopted after their tragedy: inspiration for the future.