The CEO of Toei Animation, Asama Yosuke, has shaken the foundations of the industry during the Cannes Film Festival. His statement is clear: the era of anime as an exclusively Japanese product is over. Toei, the studio behind giants like Dragon Ball and One Piece, now plans to create works rooted in local cultures alongside creators from around the world, challenging the traditional definition of an animation that for decades was identified with Japan, its systems, and traditions.
Globalized production and its new technical standards 🌍
This shift implies a change in traditional workflows. Toei will need to adapt its production pipelines to integrate international teams, which requires remote collaboration platforms and asset standardization. The use of tools like Toon Boom Harmony or Unreal Engine for previsualization could facilitate coordination. However, the technical challenge lies in maintaining the visual consistency that defines anime, with its limited animation rhythms and facial expressiveness, while incorporating artistic sensibilities from other regions, from European strokes to Latin American visual storytelling.
Goodbye to 100% Japanese anime, hello to anime with an accent 🎨
In other words, now a French studio could make an episode of One Piece where Luffy eats a croissant instead of rice. Toei says it wants works rooted in local cultures, which sounds nice until you imagine Goku doing yoga in India or Sailor Moon wearing a Spanish flamenco kimono. The real challenge won't be technical, but explaining to a lifelong fan that their favorite series could be animated by a team in Brazil. But hey, as long as they don't put reggaeton on the Super Saiyan transformation, everything will be fine.