---
title: 'This Is How Anime is Animated.'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=lF1X0tCknfs'
video_id: 'lF1X0tCknfs'
date: 2026-06-16
duration_sec: 0
---

# This Is How Anime is Animated.

> Source: [This Is How Anime is Animated.](https://youtube.com/watch?v=lF1X0tCknfs)

## Summary

This video explains the complex process of creating anime, from initial funding and storyboarding to key animation, coloring, and final broadcast. It highlights the immense effort and talent required, especially for smaller studios where animators often work overnight.

### Key Points

- **Anime as a Genre** [0:00] — Anime is a genre of Japanese animation, a huge and growing industry known for its beauty.
- **Production Companies and Studios** [0:14] — Production companies like Viz Media or Toei Animation fund the process and handle distribution, while animation studios do the actual animating and pay staff.
- **Team Composition** [1:04] — Teams consist of full-time employees, freelance animators, and a few full-timers.
- **Storyboarding** [1:11] — The first step is storyboarding, done by the director and specialists, often starting before the entire storyboard is complete due to time constraints.
- **Key Animation and Inbetweening** [1:39] — Key animators draw important frames, while younger animators fill in the gaps (inbetweening) for less critical frames.
- **Long Hours for Animators** [2:12] — Smaller studios often have employees sleeping over, and even larger companies face this challenge due to the difficulty of animation.
- **Background Art** [2:29] — Traditionally, backgrounds were watercolor painted on paper; newer shows often use digital backgrounds.
- **Revision and Coloring** [2:39] — All drawings are revised for quality and consistency, then color artists digitize, color, and clean up the animation, filling in black, skin, clothes, hair, eyes, and shading.
- **Effects and Voice Acting** [3:09] — An effects team adds details like sword shines or smoke, then voice actors record their lines.
- **Finalization and Release** [3:26] — After multiple revisions, the anime is finalized and a broadcast or release date is set. Some anime and movies take years to make.

### Conclusion

Creating anime is an incredibly labor-intensive process requiring immense talent and dedication, from storyboarding to final effects. The video emphasizes the hard work of animators, who produce some of the best works in history.

## Transcript

so anime is a genre of japanese
animation it's an absolutely huge
industry and it's growing larger to this
day obviously most anime if not all
anime is beautiful
with some shining above some others but
how does anime even get created
like who draws it and how do they color
it it seems like a really tough job
don't worry i'll explain everything in
this video and don't forget to subscribe
if you enjoy
anyways let's get into it the process of
animating anime is definitely a process
it's one of the harder if not hardest
forms of animation
in the world simply put japanese
animators have a lot of talent
comparing american cartoons to anime
lets you know what i'm getting at
the very beginning of the animation
process starts with everything but the
actual animating part
the anime production company like viz
media or touhou animation
will put up money for the initial
animating process they'll also take care
of the costs that come from airing the
show
and distributing it to other countries
the actual animation studio will do the
animating
obviously along with paying staff and
some other requirements beforehand
the studio and producers will assemble
their team and get to work
teams and anime typically consist of
full-time employees or
freelance animators and a few
full-timers you've probably heard of
storyboarding
this is usually the first step in
creating an anime the director and some
other people who specialize in
storyboarding will put it all together
and scriptwriters will create the script
more times than not the studio will
start animating way before the entire
storyboard is done for a set episode
just because the animation is hard and
it's time consuming there will be many
rough sketches and other drawings before
the animation is finalized
that directors and other specialists
will look over they'll decide how the
camera moves through a given scene and
where the characters need to be
positioned
once that's all said and done key
animators will start drawing the
characters with other younger animators
filling in the gaps between
keys by drawing the movement basically a
key animation is the drawing that sits
on the screen which
is an important one because we take a
lot of time looking at this the newer
animators draw the movement because we
see these frames for a lot less time
so the quality doesn't really mean as
much there are some scenes in anime that
probably use key animators drawing
all the sequences just because every
frame is important the whole animating
process is definitely the longest out of
everything that goes into creating an
anime
for some smaller studios or for studios
with newer animators they could see many
nights where employees sleep over at the
building
even with larger companies that animate
this concept is not foreign
animating is ridiculously hard so if you
watch a beautiful anime
just remember how hard the animators
worked on it back in the day special
background artists would watercolor
paint the backgrounds for anime
on an actual sheet of paper but newer
shows will usually
digitally create their background with
maybe a few exceptions
all drawing in anime gets revised before
production and color
just to ensure quality and frame
consistency after the drawings are
finalized and revised
color artists from a studio's coloring
team digitalize color and clean up the
animation
the process of coloring frames and anime
proves to be a difficult task
much like animating the actual anime
they'll fill in the black then skin
clothes hair
eyes then shade the whole character and
this process is repeated
a lot i'm sure they have ways to
digitally color in an easier way that
helps make it less monotonous
once everything's animated and colored
an effects team will take hold of the
anime and add little things that make a
lot of difference in the end
like the shining of a sword or smoke on
a cigar the voice actors will then do
their work which can take a long time
but is probably the most fun part in
producing anime and after everything is
revised and revised again
and finalized they'll set up a date for
broadcast if said anime is airing on tv
or they'll just say a release date
wherever it's being shown some animes
and anime movies can take
years to make just depending on what the
anime is
and the requirements for animation
quality animators have a really tough
job but they're creating some of the
best works in history
so i hope all the work is worth what
they get thanks for watching that's a
basic understanding of the animation
process
leave a comment and as always thanks for
watching
you