Designer's Garage. Courtesy of Netflix.
Netflix announced that it has launched its Netflix Anime Creators’ Base in Tokyo, a community for designers, writers and Netflix anime team to bolster the company’s anime offering for fans around the world.
Taiki Sakurai, the Chief Producer, Anime said, “When I first watched the hit anime series Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, an inspiring story about three high schoolers coming together to found an animation club, I was intrigued by the idea of making a space where creative minds could gather. It reminded me that creative processes should always be driven by passion and having fun.”
“Anime has become one of our most popular genres at Netflix. In 2020, anime was watched by over 120 million households. We want to get even better at bringing fans these aspirational stories by talented creatives in Japan and around the world,” Taiki added.
Taiki said, “That’s why today we’re launching Netflix’s first-ever Anime Creators’ Base located inside our new Tokyo office. This community space will host designers, writers, and Netflix team members working on bolstering our amazing anime lineup. From this space, we want to promote best practices and high production standards, to empower creators with the necessary tools and resources of anime production over time.”
Netflix Anime Creators’ Base consists of three areas:
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Designers’ Garage: This space seats up to 10 designers and artists. At launch, designers will focus on creating conceptual art at the early developmental stages of an anime series or film to ensure creative staff is aligned on the look and feel of a project.
Eden – Conceptual Art. Courtesy of Netflix. -
Writers’ Garage: This meeting room is designed to be a collaborative space for creatives working on anime shows, where teams will develop and edit scripts, and invite creators to discuss new projects (and of course, geek out a little on anime).
Writer’s Garage. Courtesy of Netflix. -
Lab: This multi-functional space is designed to be a versatile room for innovation, like testing out new creative technologies such as VR or playing around with the latest motion capture technologies.
Lab. Courtesy of Netflix.
At the opening, Netflix Anime Creators’ Base will focus on developing conceptual art to support creators and production studios during pre-production. Two designers, Namiko Ishidate and Saina Cisse will be based here to help with this work.
The Chief Producer added, “The development of conceptual art is an important part of the creative process, but occasionally, this step is skipped because of limited bandwidth or time. When a project has conceptual art, every single staff member involved can visualize what the environment, cultural background, or character of the show might look like. With this additional creative step, we can drive even richer, more visually-oriented communication with creative partners. We hope focusing on this important step in the creative process will ultimately help produce the best possible show.”
Netflix has used state-of-the-art technology to expand the anime art form and is training young animators as they continue to support the anime genre by giving its partners the space, the tools, and the resources to make the best series and films.
