Young Animator Training Project

Overview

In the Anime industry, usually new animators start working as in-betweeners (also known as dougas or dougaman) It's well known in Japan the lack of workers in this field, apart from being underpaid and very hardworking, one could take months or even years until moving up in the Industry to become a Key Animator (also knows as Genga or Gengaman), most of the new animators quit early on this stage.

Then the companies resort to "Cost Productions", outsourcing the in-between-animation to this companies in countries like China or Korea. Because it's cheaper to outsource, in the last years it has been even harder to train these dougaman due to the so called "Industry Crisis". Even so there are animation companies like Toei that ensure training programs to train new animators.

This Young Animator Project is a welcome relief to the Industry, The Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) said that they intended to aid the Japanese animation industry by giving monetary support to 4 studios to develop their work. It's an excellent opportunity to new animators to work (and train) directly on the final work. As stated the Production is exclusively located in Japan, each original short will run in about 23 min. with OP/ED sequence and a experient Animation Director will direct each short, as well as work in supervising and demonstrating their know-how to the new animators. There was also a specialized team of Tutoring ans supervision, with veteran anmators such as: Yasuo Ootsuka, Sachiko Kamimura,Yoshio Kabashima, Toshihiro Kawamoto and Sachiko Sugino.

As for the companies involved there were 16 applicants for the 2010 project, being the 4 finalist Ascension, Telecom Animation Film, P.A. Works and Production I.G.

The first project started on June 2010 and was broadcasted during March 2011.

The 2011 Project was in development between May 2011- January2012 amongst the 11 studio biders for the funds, the 4 selected were: Answer Studio, Shirogumi, Telecom Animation Film and Production I.G.

In a press conference held in Januray 2012, "Project A" Ambassador Takanori Nishikawa announced that the 2011 project would premiere on Television on March , but before that would be shown in Theatres. Project A also has been renamed as "Anime Mirai" http://animemirai.jp/

The 2012-13 Project had a record of 18 submitted Projects, the final four were Gonzo, Studio Trigger, Madhouse and Zexcs (This studio replaced the previous announced Studio Pierrot). The 4 projects will be shown March 2nd on Theaters

2011-12 Projects

2012-13 Projects