Anime Studio / Manga Creator Thread

[mDuo13]

Have you ever noticed that many anime tend to have very strong similarities to other anime by the same studios or creators? Not only that, but there are people who tend to just gravitate towards certain studios repeatedly? I think it's time we discussed some of the characteristics of these studios and creators! Are there any shows that don't fit in the trend? Did you really like a certain anime? You may just discover that there's an anime you'd really like in here.

Here are a few to start with:

Animation Studios

Bee Train - Creators of Noir, .hack//SIGN, Madlax, El Cazador, Avenger, .hack//Roots, etc. Distinct use of recurring flashbacks, lots of emphasis on music rather than dialogue. Tend to have overly cryptic storylines with somewhat anticlimactic payback in the end but still really satisfying for some people. For other people, slow plot development bores them to death. Unusual color schemes, silhouette-centric opening sequences, etc. The Tsubasa Chronicle TV series was animated by them, which was kind of a horrible clash of styles with the manga artists, CLAMP.

GAINAX - Creators of Evangelion, FLCL, Gurren Lagann, Gunbuster, Mahoromatic, etc. Quirky sci-fi action/comedy series, giant robots with obscure emotions, cliché love stories and apocalyptic endings. The science fiction aspects especially are indecipherable but usually entertaining. Shows have a tendency to start out interesting, have a lot of ordinary filler in the middle, and then go insane by the end. Also one of the studios that tends to show bare breasts most often. Surprisingly, the He Is My Master anime, which breaks many of these rules, was also produced by GAINAX, though based on an extant manga.

Kyoto Animation - Produced Full Metal Panic Fumoffu! and FMP: The Second Raid (but not the original), AIR, Kanon, CLANNAD, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Lucky Star... This is the studio that everyone loves to talk about. Relatively new, very high level of attention to detail. Lots of fancy lighting effects.

SUNRISE - The entire Mobile Suit Gundam series, Cowboy Bebop, Code Geass, My-HiME, Crest of the Stars, etc. Specialize in epic storylines that inevitable culminate in mech battles, but with more variety than some other studios. There's some crap mixed in with the good stuff (Argento Soma, anyone?), which is inevitable since they've been around since 1979, which is a lot longer than studios like KyoAni and Bee Train.

BONES - Producers of Fullmetal Alchemist, Scrapped Princess, RahXephon, Ouran High School Host Club; Creators of Wolf's Rain, Eureka Seven, Darker Than Black. Pretty versatile combination of action and heavy storyline for the most part. A studio that has established itself pretty well in the past 10 years.

Production IG - One of the super-big names of anime production. Parent company of Bee Train and Xebec. Also tends to make animation for lots of non-anime, including Kill Bill Vol. 2 and lots of videogames.

SHAFT - Tsukuyomi ~Moon Phase~, Pani Poni Dash!, Hidamari Sketch, Sayonara Zetsubou-sensei. Someone else fill in the description for this. They're zany and heavily stylized is all I can really say.

Ghibli - Nasicaa, Spirited Away, Whispers of the Heart, Howl's Moving Castle, etc. You know who this is. Hell, your parents know who this is. They're not called "the Disney of Japan" for no reason. Most of their movies are famous for a reason. There are a surprising number of them that aren't actually directed by Hayao Miyazaki, though. They look similar but some of them are actually quite different in style.

Manga Groups
I'm not going to delve to the level of individual manga-ka for the most part, but some important names in the creation of manga...

Shonen Jump - Probably the most-exported manga collection in Japan, in terms of series popularity. Serialized everything from Dragonball to Naruto, Bleach, and Death Note with uncountable other worthwhile series in the middle. Most (if not all) of the biggest hits in America have their origins in Jump. Their series usually go on seemingly forever and involve fighting with dramatic increases in power level.

CLAMP - A trio of female manga-ka who work together to create stuff like X, Magic Knights Rayearth, Chobits, and xxxHolic. Their fanbase is female-dominated and sizeable, but they are also more or less in mainstream anime fandom. Their manga endings tend to be bloody and somewhat negative in tone, which gets them in a lot of fights with their publishers and whoever is attempting to animate their series (see: Tsubasa Resevoir Chronicle).


Anyway, I'm sick of typing, so I'll leave the list at that. For those of you who are knowledgeable about a studio, please do chime in more! I'm no expert on all of them, and there are plenty that have been left off this list. Or say what you think about the various studios.

[Spiritsnare]

SHAFT - Hidamari Sketch. That's all I can really say.

Oh, and I almost thought this thread was to talk about the software Anime Studio and Manga Creator respectively.

[Appu]

MADHOUSE!

Loved Master Keaton, and loving Kaiji. Other notable series that I know of include Black Lagoon, Death Note, Hajime no Ippo.

[LastElixir]

nice wrap up, it's all about shaft.

j

[PyronIkari]

KyoAni isn't new by any means... They're from the early 90's. No one made a big deal of them until recently

They did InuYasha and the Super Mario World anime... so I don't see how they're "new".

[zoupzuop2]

KyoAni isn't new by any means... They're from the early 90's. No one made a big deal of them until recently

They did InuYasha and the Super Mario World anime... so I don't see how they're "new".

Whoa whoa hold it. There's a Super Mario World... ANIME?

Oh wow. I'mma go Yahoo! that right now.

[Nyxyin]

Have you ever noticed that many anime tend to have very strong similarities to other anime by the same studios or creators?

They're not studios, but I think creators Satoshi Kon and Akitaroh Daichi tend to have very signature series.

Satoshi Kon
Satoshi Kon is the writer/director of the movies, Perfect Blue, Millenium Actress, Tokyo Godfathers, and now Paprika, and the TV series, Paranoia Agent.  What I see as his "signature" is the mind warp: he blurs fantasy and reality until it's difficult to tell what's "real" and what's not.

Akitaroh Daichi
Akitaroh Daichi does a lot of work that doesn't bear what I consider to be his "signature": here, he seems to be best known for "Fruits Basket" and "Now and Then, Here and There".  However, what I like about his stuff (and what he is apparently better known for in Japan) is the off-beat frenetic comedy present in Kodocha, Jubei-chan, Animation Runner Kuromi, Grrl Power (Makasete Iruka), and Elf Princess Rane.  He also has several long-running series (with generally ugly character designs) that don't become popular here, but he's hilariously funny.

I normally separate out Gainax and Ghibli into the creators as well.  Anno's work, for example, was very distinct from the other Gainax stuff, and I think Anno's creativity is what gave Gainax their name.  They've branched out, and Gainax has several different styles out.  I haven't been as impressed with what Gainax has put out without Anno.  For Ghibli, Takahata's works are different from Miyazaki's, and I tend to like Takahata's works better.  Miyazaki's work is very charming, but it's more aimed at being understandable by young children.  Ghibli has produced movies that were out of reach of pre-teens, and those would be the ones not made by (the elder) Miyazaki.  (If Earthsea is any indication, the younger Miyazaki shows some potential for developing his own style, distinct from his father's.)

EDIT: I forgot to mention Toei Animation.  They create the anime people watch before people know what anime is.  They did Voltron, Transformers, Dragonball, TMNT, Sailor Moon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Digimon.

EDIT 2: And for manga, I'm keeping an eye on Peach Pit.  They're a new(-ish) female duo that did Rozen Maiden, DearS, and Zombie-Loan.  They have gorgeous character designs, and I think their designs are cuter than CLAMP's signature of long and thin.

EDIT 3: I need to stop doing this.  Speaking of Peach Pit, for mangaka of the ultra-moe, I nominate Koge Donbo of Digi-Charat, Pita-Ten, Tiny Snow Fairy Sugar, and Kamichama Karin.

Keiji Gotoh also has signature eyes in his character designs.  He did the characters for Gate Keepers, Kiddy Grade, Martian Successor Nadesico, Real Bout High School, Sorcerer Hunters, and Those Who Hunt Elves.

[mDuo13]

KyoAni isn't new by any means... They're from the early 90's. No one made a big deal of them until recently

They did InuYasha and the Super Mario World anime... so I don't see how they're "new".

Yes, Kyoto Animation was around as early as 1981, but it didn't start doing full-on "Animation Production" of its own series until about 2003. Until that point, they did mostly keyframes, secondary production, or other intermediate details. KyoAni started taking lead on anime projects with, if I recall correctly, Full Metal Panic Fumoffu. That's when they started gathering attention. They're relatively (i.e. compared to well-established studios like Sunrise, who officially did the animation production on InuYasha) new to the business in that regard. I admit I was misleading to imply that the company was established much later than Sunrise, but it was "established" as a force in animation only recently when it started playing with the big leagues, so to speak.

Satoshi Kon is a great director that should have been included in my list. I'm not so big on naming individual manga-ka though, because those kinds of lists can go on forever. I made an exception for CLAMP because they're so influential as a name entity.

[Nyxyin]

Satoshi Kon is a great director that should have been included in my list.

Someone just mentioned Makoto Shinkai in a different thread, and I think Shinkai definitely needs to be on this list.  His major works include "Voices of a Distant Star", "The Place Promised in Our Early Days", and now "5 Centimeters per Second".  The legend is that he did all of that mostly by himself on his Mac, and I think he's a wonderful inspiration that fans can make anime too.  His landscapes are very distinctive and would be almost realistic if they weren't so stunningly and breathtakingly gorgeous.  His works seem to all focus on unfulfilled love.

[Spiritsnare]

Satoshi Kon is a great director that should have been included in my list.

Someone just mentioned Makoto Shinkai in a different thread...The legend is that he did all of that mostly by himself on his Mac.

If I remember correctly, that legend only applies to Voices of a Distant Star (and his earlier short animation She and Her Cat). He had quite a bit of help on Place Promised and 5cm.

I won't deny that Makoto Shinkai's direction is remarkable, though. So much detail is put into his work.

[Nyxyin]

If I remember correctly, that legend only applies to Voices of a Distant Star (and his earlier short animation She and Her Cat). He had quite a bit of help on Place Promised and 5cm.

I guess.  Other than Tenmon's music, which was also used for Voices, IMDB seems to claim that he only used an art director and two background artists for 5 cm, and a character designer and a background artist for Place Promised.  "Quite a bit" sounds to me like a large team of people rather than less than a handful of friends.

I didn't realize that was Shinkai's voice in She and Her Cat.

[Spiritsnare]

"Quite a bit" sounds to me like a large team of people rather than less than a handful of friends.

I remember a huge list of credits at the end of 5cm, so that's where I'm pulling that from. ^^;

[mDuo13]

"Quite a bit" sounds to me like a large team of people rather than less than a handful of friends.

I remember a huge list of credits at the end of 5cm, so that's where I'm pulling that from. ^^;

Likewise.

[Nyxyin]

I remember a huge list of credits at the end of 5cm, so that's where I'm pulling that from. ^^;

Ah, OK.  IMDB could just be incomplete then.  I saw 5cm at Tsunami, and I had to use the restrooms towards the end, so if they played the credits, I missed them.  ^_^;

[Nyxyin]

So manga... I've been wondering myself, so I took the time to look things up.  The left-most is the publishing company, the first indents are the magazines, and the second indents are manga titles.

• Kodansha
  
     
  • Afternoon (seinen)
    
         
    • Ah, Megamisama!
    • Genshiken
    • Gankutsuou
    • Mushishi
    • Ookiku Furikabutte
    • Shion no Ou
       
  • Shounen Magazine
    
         
    • Boys Be
    • Love Hina, Negima
    • GetBackers
    • GTO
    • Samurai Deeper Kyo
    • School Rumble
    • Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
       
• Hakusensha
  
     
  • Hana to Yume (shoujo)
    
         
    • Angel Sanctuary
    • Fruits Basket
    • Meine Liebe
    • Descendants of Darkness
    • Gakuen Alice
    • Glass Mask
    • Please Save My Earth
       
  • LaLa (shoujo)
    
         
    • Kare Kano
    • Harukanaru Toki no Naka de
    • Ouran High School Host Club
    • Vampire Knight
       
  • Shounen Jets (now defunct)
    
         
    • Berserk
       
• Kadokawa Shoten
  
     
  • Asuka (shoujo)
    
         
    • Clamp: X, Wish, Legal Drug, Shirahime-syo
    • Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days
    • Trinity Blood
    • Code Geass
    • Cowboy Bebop
    • DNAngel
    • Angelique
       
  • Shounen Ace
    
         
    • Fate/stay Night
    • Angelic Layer
    • Escaflowne
    • The World of Narue
    • Neon Genesis Evangelion
    • Welcome to the NHK!
    • Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight
    • Blood+
    • Lucky Star
       
• MediaWorks
  
     
  • Dengeki Daioh (seinen)
    
         
    • Azumanga Daioh, Yotsuba
    • Gunslinger Girl
    • Kanon
    • DiGiCharat
    • Strawberry Marshmallow
    • Tsukihime
    • Boogiepop Phantom
    • Kokoro Library
    • To Heart, Comic Party
    • Uchuu no Stellvia
    • Shinoboden
       
• Shueisha
  
     
  • Shounen Jump
    
         
    • Kekko Kamen
    • Yu-Gi-Oh GX
    • Bleach
    • Naruto
    • One Piece
    • Prince of Tennis
    • Dragon Ball Z
    • Shaman King
    • Hikaru no Go
    • Yu Yu Hakusho
       
  • Margaret (shoujo)
    
         
    • Brother Dear Brother, Rose of Versailles
    • Hana Yori Dango
    • Zetsuai
    • Tenshi no Shippo
    • Maria-sama ga Miteru
       
  • Ribon (shoujo)
    
         
    • Kodomo no Omocha
    • Marmalade Boy, Ultra Maniac
    • Super GALS! Kotobuki Ran
       
• Mag Garden
  
     
  • Comic Blade (shounen/seinen, with furigana)
    
         
    • ARIA
    • Sketchbook
    • Binchou-tan
    • Erementar Gerad
       

Choice of what to list was random.
Sources were various places in the Wikipedia and the comments below.

[PyronIkari]

Nyx: A handful of what you posted is incorrect,  Nana for example. Nana is Cookie.

[Nyxyin]

Nyx: A handful of what you posted is incorrect,  Nana for example. Nana is Cookie.

Removed.  I got NANA from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribon_Magazine but then I click the link, and it says Cookie.  Blech.  Which others are wrong?

[mDuo13]

Nyxin: you can also add Ookiku Furikabutte and Shion no Ou under Afternoon. Both of those were good enough to get animated recently.

I'm also a fan of Comic Blade, published by Mag Garden. That's mostly just because it publishes ARIA, though. Other things people might recognize from it: Sketchbook, Binchou-tan, and Erementar Gerad. (Part of the reason I like Comic Blade is that it has furigana, so I actually stand a chance at reading it, unlike seinen magazines.

[Nyxyin]

Updated.  Thanks!

[KawaiiAngel]

*runs into thread*

YUU WATASE!

*runs away*