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The Global Producer: Making Animation Across Borders at Anime Expo 2025

#feature #anime July 17, 2025

This year's Anime Expo hosted a panel dubbed The Global Producer: Making Animation Across Borders, dedicated to the realities and challenges of modern anime production. The featured panelists (listed below) shared their experiences working in the Japanese animation industry, while especially focusing on working in Japan as foreigners. Taking part in the panel were:

  • Justin Leach, CEO, Qubic Pictures (Star Wars: Visions, Leviathan)
  • Josh Rimes, VP of Animation Development & Production, Lucasfilm
  • Yoshihiro Watanabe, Producer, Studio Orange (Trigun Stampede, BEASTARS)
  • Christiano Terry, CEO, N LITE (The Chronicles of Eden)
  • Arthell Isom, CEO, D’ART Shtajio (Yasuke, Star Wars: Visions)
  • Sy Huq, Lead Executive Producer, D'ART Shtajio
  • Will Feng, Producer, Independent (Star Wars: Visions, PROMARE, ThunderCats)

The attendees got to hear interesting stories about the panelists. Yoshihiro Watanabe, known for his work on Trigun Stampede and BEASTARS, shared that he started his career in Japan after he met MADHOUSE/MAPPA/Studio M2 founder Masao Maruyama at Anime Expo in 2006. Maruyama called him one day and asked if he wanted to work for MADHOUSE and if he'd be willing to move the following week.

Lucasfilm's Rimes admitted he got into anime later in life through Star Wars: Visions. The first season of this anthology series was produced in 2021. Seven Japanese studios took part: Trigger, Science SARU, Kamikaze Douga, Studio Colorido, Geno Studio, Kinema Citrus, and Production I.G.

Arthell Isom, the CEO of 2D animation studio D’ART Shtajio, revealed that he got into anime through Ghost in the Shell. He liked the series and decided he wanted to work for Production I.G, so he moved to Japan. At this point, he didn't know Japanese, and he ended up going to art school before eventually getting into Ogura Koubou (background art studio founded by Hiromasa Oguro) and then later Production I.G. His first job in animation was in anime, which he thinks helped him because he didn't have a reference point for the American animation industry, and therefore nothing to compare it to. He added that at his first job at Ogura Koubou, people thought he was a security guard and not a background painter. He said learning Japanese while going to a Japanese school was a particularly challenging part of living in Japan as a foreigner. Isom also revealed that he is still on good terms and gets advice from Ogura from Ogura Koubou and Mitsuhisa Ishikawa from Production I.G.

Christiano Terry's anime journey started with him recording Spirited Away, Metropolis, and other movies on VHS. He eventually decided he wanted to do something related to anime, so he went to art school and later business school, to avoid being a starving artist. In the end, he decided to open up his own studio.

Sai got into anime and then looked around to do things and got some work with Tori Animation(?)

Will Feng, independent producer, admitted that he did not know what the difference between anime and cartoons was until he was 20. He wasn't particularly interested in making anime, but he "wanted to be friends with these people" and somehow "wormed his way into it." He said that it's good to know Japanese, but you also have to know the industry's "codex," which itself is "like a secret language." Feng jokingly referred to the industry as a continuation of the Warring States period, in that most studios are branches or lineages of other studios as far as culture and staff go.

Qubic Pictures' Justin Leach ended up in Japan because he worked as an animator on a film that won an award. He got to go to Japan and meet people like Hayao Miyazaki and Michael Arias. Later, he asked someone from Production I.G is he could work for the studio, and later got a call saying that they had a position open for a foreigner. He ended up taking it.

International co-productions aren't just about ideas being made in Japanese or American values but about bringing the cultures togethers, Watanabe highlighted. Terry added that anime is now a global form of depression and inspiration.

In addition to the panelists, the event was attended by Patience Lekien, creator of MFINDA, and Donald H. Hewitt, known for his work on the English version so Ghibli movies such as Spirited Away and for the MFINDA screenplay. Terry revealed that they brought MFINDA to Masao Maruyama, and now he and M2 are directly involved in the project.


Qubic and Orange collaborated on the Leviathan anime, which is currently streaming on Netflix.

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Tamara Lazic

Tamara is Editor-in-Chief of Anime Atelier. She has over four years of experience in anime content writing. You can contact her at tamara@anime-atelier.com

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