In his previous world, Kamiyā Yuu had been someone plagued by extreme laziness—the kind of person who would definitely be removed from a factory assembly line. Yet after merging with this Kamiyā Yuu's memories, he found himself unexpectedly not resistant to the high-intensity job of a key animator. The reason was probably that he himself was an anime enthusiast. Before personally experiencing the hardships of being a key animator, he had never truly understood how painful it could be when a hobby turned into a job.
"Since I've set the goal of becoming a director, I should work hard at it." As he climbed the stairs, Kamiyā Yuu sighed inwardly, recalling the fundamentals of animation production bit by bit. To become an animation director, one needed a comprehensive understanding of animation—whether it be story, visuals, music, character design, and more- all of which required serious effort. The current Kamiyā Yuu was still a complete newcomer even among key animators. Just controlling key animation scenes was already difficult, let alone overseeing the entire production as a director.
In the animation field, there were roughly two main roles: key animators and the even more overworked in-between animators. In-between animators were responsible for further processing the work of key animators, mainly drawing the intermediate frames between key poses.
For example, in a tennis player's serve, the key animator only needed to draw the crucial frames of the serving motion based on the storyboard. All the intermediate frames in between were completed by the in-between animators. While a key animator might not necessarily have better drawing skills than an in-between animator, they had a much clearer grasp of character movement and scene composition. As such, in-between animators were usually newcomers to the industry. After accumulating enough experience—learning how to draw backgrounds, construct character movements and expressions, and coordinate with others—they would then qualify for promotion to key animator.
Some people remained struggling in the in-between animator role their entire lives. From this perspective, Kamiyā Yuu was quite fortunate. In just two years, he had advanced from in-between animator to key animator, which showed he had considerable talent. However, he was currently only a second key animator, mainly responsible for "cleanup." Cleanup referred to the process where the animation director or key animation supervisor would redraw or correct unsatisfactory key frames on yellow correction sheets, and the key animator would then refine the drawings based on those corrections. Since primary key animators were often too busy to handle this step, the role of second key animator existed for this purpose.
For the average viewer, it was hard to notice subtle differences in animation quality. More obvious shifts in art style could be seen in certain scenes from the first episode of 'Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha', where there were sudden stylistic changes and mysteriously high frame rates—whether intentional or due to uncorrected inconsistencies in the production.
Kamiyā Yuu thought back to the key animation he had drawn for 'Mr. Onigiri Man compared it to anime from his previous world. "Many drawing techniques in this world still aren't very mature. Judging by the completion standards of my previous world, 'Mr. Onigiri Man' would just be a low-budget short anime."
For most people, becoming a key animator was already the end of the road in this industry. However, with opportunity or exceptional talent, one could advance to a key animation supervisor. This role mainly involved checking the key frames drawn by animators, integrating them, and performing "key animation direction" to catch errors. It also included creating character designs.
Additionally, animation studios often lacked the manpower and time to handle all scenes and minor cuts themselves, so they would outsource portions of the work to other companies. This practice was known as "outsourcing." China and the two Koreas were popular outsourcing destinations, likely because China's animation industry was still underdeveloped, meaning animators there were paid less, saving a significant amount of outsourcing costs.
Generally speaking, the animation production process went like this: the director created the storyboards, key animators drew the key frames based on them, and then in-between animators filled in the details. Once all drawings were completed, the work was handed over to the photography department for compositing and effects.
Nowadays, the photography department mostly uses digital compositing, but due to traditional naming conventions, it is still called the photography department. It handled compositing, visual effects, and similar tasks.
After everything was finished, what remained was post-production—editing cuts, synchronizing visuals and audio, and VTR editing.
Editing involved cutting out imperfect or unnecessary scenes, similar to film editing. Then came dubbing—not just character voices, but also sound effects such as footsteps, explosions, rain, and more, all carefully matched to the visuals.
After dubbing, the final post-production step was to combine everything—VTR editing (also called V-editing). This process merged sound and visuals until the director was satisfied. At that point, the animation was considered complete and could be delivered to a TV station for broadcast.
Each stage of production was overseen by experienced staff known as "episode directors," who repeatedly checked to ensure there were no errors. If any step went wrong, it could trigger a chain reaction and further compress the already tight schedule. Under time pressure, some steps might overlap—for example, skipping certain processes and dubbing directly from key frames, or using "line filming," where the photography department composited raw key frames without effects for early dubbing and editing. This essentially forced the photography department to redo work later, but it was widely used out of necessity.
As a result, the photography department often experienced extreme workloads—idle for half a month, then overwhelmed for the other half.
What if the production schedule couldn't keep up? This had happened many times in history. A common solution used by clever directors was the "recap episode." For instance, if seven episodes had been completed, a recap episode would re-edit and compile content from those episodes for broadcast.
Producing animation was no less than fighting a war. The director was the general; roles like key animation director, photography director, and art director were equivalent to officers commanding troops, and production assistants were the messengers. Any mistake at any stage could lead to total failure.
Despite such high-intensity work, the wages for animation staff were pitifully low. Because of this, animation workers were often considered among the least motivated professionals in Japan.
The process of creating an animation was so complex that one person couldn't do it alone. If Kamiyā Yuu wanted to produce animation, he would need to establish a company, build connections, and secure sufficient funding. And all the steps mentioned so far were only part of production—before that, there were also planning stages and securing investors, both of which were no easy tasks.
"These are just the basics. Right now, even just handling cleanup is already a bit overwhelming." After recalling all this foundational knowledge, Kamiyā Yuu realized that even with the help of his mental "space," producing an animation wasn't something that could be done overnight.
"What about 3D? That wouldn't require such complicated traditional processes. In my previous world, 3D animation had already surpassed traditional animation in both technology and visuals." Kamiyā Yuu muttered to himself, the more he thought about it, the more feasible it seemed. As long as he had the appropriate 3D software and sufficient skill, it might be possible for a single person to complete an animation. In his memories, he recalled many outstanding 3D works—for example, 'RWBY', which had captivated a large fanbase with its unique style. Its four promotional trailers featured rough yet beautiful visuals, Gothic character designs, and especially striking combat choreography that left a strong impression.
"Uh…"
Just as Kamiyā Yuu was about to step forward again, he realized there was a wall in front of him. While lost in thought, he had unconsciously reached the fifth floor of Kyoni Animation. Looking around and seeing no one, he scratched his head awkwardly and thought, "For now, I should just focus on doing my job as a key animator properly. Otherwise, even next month's salary might be in trouble."