Answerman

How to Hire a Japanese Studio to Produce Your OVA

That's it. In over four decades of anime history, those are essentially the only substantial titles where non-Japanese, non-Korean, and non-Chinese creators led Japanese studio productions. So congratulations, you're aspiring to one of the most exclusive clubs in entertainment.

Your Secret Weapons

#1: You are an animator and you speak Japanese. Congratulations! You are already in a great position. LeSean was able to bring Satelight to his Cannon Busters pilot because he established relationships with creators within that studio, namely Thomas Romain, who was a big advocate for the project. That personal connection—animator to animator—is what made everything possible. LeSean is not fluent in Japanese, so we hired an incredible interpreter named Jacob Ayers* to work full-time with him as his production assistant.

*There's an excellent interview with Jacob, who now works as a producer at David Studio that I highly recommend you watch.

#2: What's the story? What does it look like? Here's what most people don't understand about Japanese animation production: key frame animators are the rockstars of anime, and they tend to flock towards projects that attract them creatively. So! Is your anime idea compelling enough to attract talent to the production? How cool is it? What does it have to say on an emotional level? What's its hook? Is it the story and characters? The themes it explores? Does it promise intense, technical action set-pieces? Is it mechakucha kūru (めちゃくちゃクール)?

Why You Can't Just "Hire" a Studio

Here's the harsh truth that most aspiring creators don't understand: you can't just hire a studio like you'd hire a contractor to renovate your kitchen. Japanese studios are optimized for the domestic market and the production committee system. They're not set up to be service providers for individual foreign creators.

When I worked on Cannon Busters, I learned that what LeSean needed wasn't just more money to commission animation, it was a distribution pathway that would unlock production financing. That's why Netflix to greenlight the project.

If you take your project and production finance directly to a studio, they'll take your money, not care about the project, and subcontract most of the labor to overworked, underpaid freelancers. That's not the anime you want to make. Take a relationship-first approach. Instead of thinking like a client hiring a vendor, think like Thomas Romain, the French animator who became LeSean's advocate within Satelight. Target specific creators, not studios. Research directors, character designers, and key animators whose work aligns with your vision. Studios are just buildings, it's the talent that matters. Your animation background gives you credibility that most outsiders lack.

You need to build genuine creative relationships. Attend industry events in Japan and at home, like Anime NYC. They attract all manner of animation professionals. Connect with creators whose work you ire. Think of yourself not as someone looking to commission work, but as a collaborator seeking creative partners who happen to work in Tokyo.

Always package your project with Japanese creative talent first. Once you have respected Japanese creators attached to your project, studios will follow. They want to work with talent they know and trust. It also makes it far more likely Crunchyroll will be interested in the project. Haven't you noticed all of the foreign IP-based anime they've co-produced have been produced in Japan, Korea, and China. They're not going to produce anime in America anytime soon. They're terrified of alienating the audience.

Here's the distribution reality. Even with great relationships and compelling content, you'll need what we brought to Cannon Busters, which was distribution expertise (See above). The most successful approach is finding an established anime production company or distributor who can provide the business infrastructure you lack. Netflix didn't greenlight our series because LeSean had money; they did it because we had a complete package: compelling IP, proven Japanese creative talent, international distribution strategy, and production expertise. I also believe that one other factor that is just as important was that Cannon Busters had already started to develop its audience and industry awareness thanks to LeSean's successful Kickstarter campaign. It's how I discovered the project, and it generated a hell of a lot of buzz at the time.

I want to stress that right now, it is really flipping difficult to get anything financed and produced by the established players in the anime and animation space. It is depressing. Ever since the beginning of 2022, the big streamers have been cutting back on content investment, and they are terrified of originals from unproven creators. They all want the biggest, most obvious, time-proven IP-based entertainment.

The good news is that anime operates inside its bubble, free, to a degree, of the whims of overpaid American executives worried about losing their jobs. As Matt Alt recently wrote in his awesome “Pure Invention” Substack, “Japan doesn't give a *** about you!”. They make stuff for themselves in Japan, and that's probably why it connects with local and global audiences the way it does. It's AUTHENTIC! Japan backs wacky anime shit all the time. So! Figure out how to create your anime in Japan, or find a way to help a Japanese writer bring their original story to the screen.

Given your background in animation and your Japanese language ability, you have genuine advantages that most aspiring creators lack. Use your animation skills to build credibility. Work on projects that showcase your abilities and help you connect with Japanese creators who share your aesthetic sensibilities.

Leverage your Japanese language skills strategically. This isn't just about communication, it's about cultural understanding. It allows you to engage with the creative community in ways that other gaijin simply can't, and focus on creating something mechakucha kūru. The Japanese animation industry responds to undeniably cool projects. Technical excellence, emotional depth, and visual innovation will attract the key animators and directors you need.

Finally! And most importantly. Focus on long-term relationship building, not transactional hiring. Every successful Western-led anime production happened because of years of relationship-building and cultural integration, not because someone had enough money to hire a studio.

You need to understand what you're g up for. Producing anime in Japan means working within Japanese business culture, production timelines, and creative processes. It means navigating cultural differences and an industry structure that prioritizes consensus and long-term relationships over individual vision.

The series we produced took over 22 months of intense collaboration in Tokyo. It required adapting English-language scripts into Japanese, working with Japanese voice actors, and navigating countless cultural nuances that would trip up someone without Japanese language skills.

The bottom line is that your Japanese language skills and animation experience put you in the top 10% of people who ask this question. But success won't come from "hiring" a studio; it'll come from becoming part of the Japanese animation ecosystem through creative collaboration and relationship-building.

Start connecting with Japanese creators whose work you ire. Show them your portfolio. Demonstrate that your project is worth their time and creative energy. The studios will follow the relationships, not the other way around.

And : even if you do everything right, some basement-dwelling gatekeeper will still complain that your anime isn't "authentic" enough. Don't let them kill your vibe.

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