Danica Davidson
September 13, 2021 
Netflix continues to show it’s very interested in being involved in anime, with almost forty new anime titles poised to be released by it in 2021. It was also just announced that it’s made an anime creators’ lounge at its offices in Tokyo, called The Anime Creators’ Base.
“When I first watched the hit anime series Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!, an inspiring story about three high schoolers coming together to found an animation club, I was intrigued by the idea of making a space where creative minds could gather,” explained Netflix chief producer of anime, Sakurai Taiki. “It reminded me that creative processes should always be driven by passion and having fun.”
According to Variety, the lounge will have Ishidate Namiko and Cisse Saina working there, and it will be their task to help the creators.
“When we think about the process there are three classic stages: pre-production, production and post,” Sakurai said. “What we want to do is cater to a stage even prior to that. Concept artwork, image boards, rough designs. So when we are creating an original show not based on an existing show or a manga the team will have an instant common image of what it will look like, while they are brainstorming ideas of story. This can sometimes be skipped because of lack of time or resources.”
He continued, “If we think that design adaptations are suitable for rebooting an existing manga property we will have the Creators Base people work on it and maybe bring it to the (IP) publisher and ask then what they think. Or we might visit a publisher of a novel, from Japan or abroad, but without any visual references. We could create an animated world and pitch that to the publisher.”
You can take a virtual tour of the lounge here, with Netflix’s N-ko as your guide.
Source: Variety
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, and its sequel, Manga Art for Intermediates, with professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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