I’ve spoken about anime studios in the past such as Sunrise and Studio 4°C and I often say how “Sunrise animated Gundam” or “Studio 4°C animated Mind Game” but the truth isn’t quite as straightforward as that. I don’t believe that my statements are wrong, each studio is the primary animation production company for those works, but it does gloss over quite an important fact, that many anime rely on outsourcing. Given this, and how it’s quite easy for people to not know about this, I thought I’d take a look at how and why anime companies outsource to other studios.
As far as I’m aware , the earliest example of an anime studio outsourcing to another studio is with the original Astro Boy anime from the 1960s. For episode 34 of Astro Boy, Osamu Tezuka decided to outsource the episode to a company called Studio Zero. However, a major problem for this studio was that very few people had actual experience with animation. Thus, when the episode was completed, a lot of the characters were off-model compared to previous episodes. Even within the episode itself, the art style changed depending on who animated it. Understandably, Osamu Tezuka was not happy about this and, when his animators came back from their break, they had to try to partially correct the episode so that it was suitable for airing.
This wasn’t exactly the best start for the idea of outsourcing animation work to other studios. However, this didn’t stop Osamu Tezuka from later hiring other studios to assist. Most notably, a number of Astro Boy episodes were animated by P Productions in the latter days of airing. Soon after, anime companies, most notably Toei, began to outsource some of their animation to other companies. Interestingly, they outsourced not only to Japanese anime companies but also to animation studios in other countries. Toei, in an effort to maintain quality, sent some of their animators to the studios in other countries to help develop the skills needed for anime, since they can be quite different to standard animation. In order to keep characters on model and consistent, these studios receive storyboards, reference sheets etc. when they are assigned a job.
Something I’ve noticed as well is that some anime companies are set up and active for some time before they manage to start doing their own productions. During their first years, a lot of these studios are working on outsourcing projects for other companies. I personally believe that this is to not only to provide a source of revenue for the fledgling studio but also to develop the skills of the crew in preparation for their own work. Most of the examples I’ve given so far involves entire episodes being animated by the company they’re outsourced to. However, it is more common to see partial outsourcing, where they are responsible for inbetweening, drawing the backgrounds, doing clean up animation etc.
Outsourcing isn’t a bad thing and doesn’t always result in a reduction in animation quality. All you have to do is look at the credits in any Studio Ghibli movie, which I personally consider to be particularly well animated, and you’ll see the names of many studios that did outsourcing work for the project. Taking Laputa: Castle in the Sky as an example, there were a variety of companies that worked with Studio Ghibli to do in-between assistance and supporting finish animation. It’s also worth mentioning that it isn’t just smaller studios that provide this type of work. For instance, Gonzo, who are notable for several productions such as Afro Samurai and Gankutsuou, have also provided assistance with films such as Howl’s Moving Castle, Ponyo and Redline.
Outsourcing is an important part of the anime industry and, while it’s fair to say that an anime like Gundam is animated by Sunrise, it’s also worth acknowledging the assistance of the other companies that worked on it. Let me know what you think about anime companies giving outsource work to other studios, notable examples, whether you were aware of it before and any additional information you might have on the topic.
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