What stories does HearLore have on Japanese animation studios?

HearLore has every story worth knowing on Japanese animation studios, narrated and connected to a hundred more. Start with any one and follow the story to the next rabbit hole.

Is there narrated audio for Japanese animation studios?

Yes. Every Japanese animation studios story on HearLore is narrated. The story is free to read, and listening is a membership that starts with 7 days free.

Are Japanese animation studios stories on HearLore free?

Every Japanese animation studios story is free to read on HearLore, all the way through. Listening is a membership. The first 7 days are free, then $3.99 a month or $24.99 a year.

Curated playlist

Japanese animation studios

GEMBA (studio)3 minGEMBA is a Japanese animation studio with an unusual origin story: it spent its first decade working in the background before anyone outside the industry knew its name. Founded in 2006 as a subsidiary of Digital Frontier, GEMBA was built…
Millepensee4 minMillepensee is a Japanese animation studio founded in 2013 and based in the Nerima district of Tokyo. At its heart is an unusual creative partnership: director Shin Itagaki and producer Naoko Shiraishi, who are married to each other and…
The Association of Japanese Animations3 minThe Association of Japanese Animations, known by its initials AJA, speaks for an industry that reaches every corner of the world. With 52 affiliate animation production companies under its banner, the AJA exists to solve problems no single…
Studio Ghibli9 minStudio Ghibli was founded on the 15th of June, 1985, in Japan, and it took its name from a desert wind. The word "Ghibli" traces back to the Libyan Arabic term for a hot Saharan gust, borrowed into Italian as the nickname for the Caproni…
CoMix Wave Films7 minOn the 15th of October 2024, Toho announced it had bought 45 shares in CoMix Wave Films, a stake equal to 6.09 percent. The acquisition raised a question. Why would one of Japan's largest entertainment conglomerates want a piece of a…
Liden Films8 minLiden Films was founded on the 22nd of February, 2012, in Suginami, Tokyo. In the years since, this single studio has grown into a network of five branches spanning Tokyo, Kyoto, and Osaka. It has produced titles ranging from a…
Bandai Namco Filmworks7 minBandai Namco Filmworks has won more Animage Anime Grand Prix awards than any other studio. Those awards are voted on by Japanese fans, and those fans kept returning to the same studio over five decades. Most of them knew it by a different…
Studio Ponoc4 minStudio Ponoc's logo shows a young witch named Mary Smith, watching the way Totoro watches from Studio Ghibli's own crest. This is a Japanese, independent animation studio, and it was built largely by veterans of that older, far more famous…
Mushi Production7 minMushi Production was born from a rivalry. When manga artist Osamu Tezuka's contract with Toei Animation expired in 1961, he did not simply move on. He built his own studio to compete directly with his former employer. The name he chose was…
Studio Pierrot8 minStudio Pierrot opened its doors in May 1979, founded by four animators who had each cut their teeth at two of Japan's most storied studios: Tatsunoko Production and Mushi Production. Yuji Nunokawa, Hisayuki Toriumi, Mitsuo Kaminashi, and…
A-1 Pictures5 minA-1 Pictures was founded on the 9th of May 2005, when Sony Music Entertainment Japan's anime arm, Aniplex, spun off its animation production division into a new, dedicated studio. The man behind the launch was Mikihiro Iwata, a former…
Satelight5 minSatelight is a Japanese animation studio whose very name encodes its origins: S for Sapporo, A for Animate, T for Technology, and E for Entertainment. That acronym points to a city in northern Hokkaidō, a retail animation chain, and a set…
Good Smile Company6 minGood Smile Company sells some of the most recognizable figurines in the world, yet the company began not as a toy manufacturer but as an event management and talent agency. Takanori Aki founded it in May 2001, and within a few years the…
Kyoto Animation8 minKyoto Animation occupies a small corner of Uji, a city in Kyoto Prefecture, but the studio's influence on Japanese animation stretches far beyond its address. On the morning of the 18th of July 2019, that influence was nearly extinguished.…
Nippon Animation7 minNippon Animation was founded on the 3rd of June 1975, but its story begins six years earlier in a moment of creative ambition that nearly broke the company before it started. A raccoon named Rascal serves today as the studio's official…
TMS Entertainment3 minTMS Entertainment traces its roots to 1946, when a textile manufacturer was founded in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, with no connection to cartoons whatsoever. Today the company's offices sit in Nakano, Tokyo, with its production studios based…
Wit Studio7 minWit Studio opened its doors on the 1st of June 2012, born out of one of Japan's most respected animation companies. A small group of producers and directors walked out of Production I.G and started something new. What they built in…
OLM (studio)8 minOLM began its life not as a household name, but as Oriental Light and Magic, a small Japanese animation company founded on the 3rd of October 1990 by nine people who had all walked out of two other studios to build something of their own.…
Bones (studio)4 minBones, a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Igusa, Suginami, Tokyo, began in October 1998 with a staff of exactly eight people. Co-founder Masahiko Minami said the name reflects that number. The team felt "like bones," with a goal…
Madhouse, Inc.5 minIn 1972, a group of animators left Mushi Production to establish Madhouse. Masao Maruyama and Osamu Dezaki led the charge alongside Yoshiaki Kawajiri. They secured funding from Yutaka Fujioka, who founded Tokyo Movie. Their first project…
Gonzo (company)8 minGonzo, the Japanese anime studio, was not born in a conference room or a corporate boardroom. It grew out of the creative wreckage of Gainax, the legendary studio behind some of Japan's most ambitious animated works. Former Gainax staff…
MAPPA6 minMasao Maruyama was seventy years old when he founded MAPPA on the 14th of June 2011, in Suginami, Tokyo. The name spells out Maruyama Animation Produce Project Association. He had just left Madhouse, a studio he had co-founded decades…
P.A. Works6 minP.A. Works is a Japanese animation studio that opened its doors on the 10th of November 2000, in the city of Nanto, in Toyama Prefecture. What makes this studio unusual is not what it produces but where it produces it. While virtually…
Production I.G11 minProduction I.G is a Japanese animation studio that rewrote its industry's business rules from the inside. In 1996, its film Ghost in the Shell reached number one on the U.S. Billboard Top Video Sales chart. Quentin Tarantino admired the…
Toei Animation7 minToei Animation traces its origin to the 23rd of January 1948, when animators Kenzō Masaoka and Sanae Yamamoto founded a company called Japan Animated Films. Toei Company purchased that studio in 1956 and renamed it. In 1998, the Japanese…
Ufotable5 minHikaru Kondo established Ufotable in October 2000 within Shinjuku, Tokyo. The studio emerged from the experience of a former Telecom Animation Film producer seeking creative independence. Their initial output included short projects and…
Studio 4°C8 minStudio 4°C takes its name from a precise physical fact: four degrees Celsius is the temperature at which water reaches its greatest density. It is a quiet, scientific name for a studio that has spent decades pushing Japanese animation into…