Wit Studio

• 1. Introduction

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  Wit 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 Musashino, Tokyo would go on to produce some of the most widely watched anime of the following decade. George Wada, a Production I.G producer who became Wit's founding president, and Tetsuya Nakatake, who took the role of representative director, set the equity split from the start: IG Port held 66.6%, Wada held 21.6%, and Nakatake held 10.0%. The studio was not a clean break from its parent. It was a deliberate extension, funded by the same infrastructure that raised it. What it chose to do with that foundation is a different story.

• 2. The Production I.G Roots

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  Tetsurō Araki came to Wit Studio from Production I.G, and so did animation directors Kyōji Asano and Satoshi Kadowaki. All three had worked together before Wit existed. That shared history meant the studio's earliest productions were not assembled from strangers but from a team that already knew how to collaborate. Araki directed Attack on Titan from its first season in 2013 through to its third, a span that ran until 2019. Animation producer Tetsuya Nakatake produced those seasons as well, maintaining the institutional continuity that the studio was built on. Shou Ootani and Kazuki Yamanaka, both listed as animation producers from 2013 onward, were part of that founding generation too. The studio was, in its earliest years, less a fresh start than a deliberate regrouping of people who already trusted each other.

• 3. Attack on Titan's Shadow

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  Attack on Titan ran across three seasons at Wit Studio, from 2013 to 2019. The studio also produced two compilation films during that period, Part 1: Crimson Bow and Arrow and Part 2: Wings of Freedom, both in the 2014-2015 window, along with additional OVAs including Attack on Titan: No Regrets and Attack on Titan: Lost Girls. The show's presence in Wit's catalogue is difficult to overstate. It was not just a long-running series but a production that pulled in director Araki and producer Nakatake across nearly every format the studio offered. The 2020 film Attack on Titan: Chronicle was among the final entries in Wit's association with the franchise. By then, the studio had begun building its identity around other works, and the handoff of the franchise's final seasons to a different studio marked a genuine turning point.

• 4. Beyond One Franchise

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  Great Pretender arrived in 2020 as a 23-episode original net animation directed by Hiro Kaburagi, who had earlier helmed Hozuki's Coolheadedness for the studio in 2014-2015. Vinland Saga's first season ran in 2019 with 24 episodes directed by Shuhei Yabuta. Ranking of Kings followed in 2021-2022, directed by Yōsuke Hatta and Makoto Fuchigami, and ran for 23 episodes before a follow-up anthology series in 2023. Spy × Family launched in 2022 as a co-production with CloverWorks, adapted from a manga source, and had accumulated 50 episodes by the production listings. Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress, an original work directed by Araki, arrived in 2016 with 12 episodes and later expanded into compilation films and a standalone film, Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress: Unato Decisive Battle, in 2019. Each of these productions pulled from different creative teams, demonstrating that Wit was building a bench rather than depending on a single creative voice.

• 5. Stop Motion and New Ventures

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  In December 2020, Wit Studio established a dedicated stop motion unit in partnership with Tomoki Misato, the director of Pui Pui Molcar. The move was not a small side project; it was the founding of an entirely separate studio arm. Misato later directed two works in the studio's ONA listings: My Melody & Kuromi in 2025, produced by Kenta Yamada and based on Sanrio characters, and Candy Caries, listed as a television adaptation of a 2021 stop-motion video, scheduled for 2027. The broader pattern of institutional expansion continued in May 2022, when Wit Studio joined Aniplex, CloverWorks, and Shueisha to form a company called JOEN. Its stated purpose was to support the planning and production of television anime, anime films, and short-form clips. The move connected Wit to major publishing and production infrastructure in a formal and ongoing way.

• 6. Cross-Media and Collaboration

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  Wit Studio's video game work includes opening animation and cutscenes for Princess Connect! Re:Dive in 2018, published by Cygames, and opening animation for BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle from Arc System Works in the same year. The studio contributed the opening animation and 2D cutscenes for Persona 3 Reload, published by Sega, in 2024. On the music video side, Wit produced videos for the artist Eve in 2019, directed by Nobutaka Yoda, and worked with Mori Calliope in 2024 on a video directed by Takashi Horiuchi. The studio co-animated Pokémon the Movie: The Power of Us with OLM in 2018, with George Wada himself serving as producer alongside Hiroyuki Katou. A later Pokémon collaboration, Pokémon: Hisuian Snow, arrived in 2022 as a three-episode ONA directed by Ken Yamamoto. The studio's work for the Star Wars: Visions anthology, listed under 2025 with director Junichi Yamamoto, extends that cross-media range further.

• 7. The People Running the Work

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  Animation producer Maiko Okada first appears in the studio's credits with Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress in 2016 and has been attached to productions including Ranking of Kings, its 2023 follow-up, and the upcoming Yaiba: Samurai Legend, listed for 2025. Kazue Hayashi joined the producer roster in 2019 and worked on Spy × Family, its feature film Spy × Family Code: White, and the original film Bubble, directed by Araki in 2022. Ryouma Kawamura, active from 2018, is the animation producer on the 2025 ONA Moonrise, directed by Masashi Koizuka, and is listed on the ambitious 2027 project The One Piece, also to be directed by Koizuka. That project is described as a manga-based remake of the One Piece anime. Hiroya Hasegawa produced both The Ancient Magus' Bride season one and Vinland Saga season one before departing in 2019. The studio's leadership and producer bench tell the story of which productions the studio considers central to its future.