Dwango and Khara Form CG Animation Joint Venture Project Studio Q

by arsonal
Jul 13, 2017 8:59 AM | 19 Comments

Entertainment content management company Dwango, animation studio Khara, and the Aso College Group announced on Wednesday that they have established an animation and CG production company named Project Studio Q.

Based in the city of Fukuoka in western Japan, Project Studio Q aims to foster talent development in the CG animation industry. The decision to establish the headquarters of the new company in the Kyushu region was made because its employment market is less competitive than in Tokyo, which is home to 87 percent of animation production companies.

At a press conference, representatives of the three founding companies indicated that discovering young creators in Japan's outer regions will be a major goal of the studio. "Thanks to the effort of these three companies, we are fortunate to be able to contribute to the local industry while making the best use of local talent," said anime director Hideaki Anno, who will supervise creative development. "We will be happy if we can help the CG animation industry and push forward the quality of their works even a little."

Project Studio Q will be led by Toyoki Oota, who is also president of game development company MAGES. Aso College Group president Takeshi Asou and Khara director Hiroyasu Kobayashi join Oota on the company's board. Shinnosuke Suzuki, who led development of streaming platform Niconico Douga at Dwango, will supervise technical development at the studio.

Project Studio Q's logo (pictured) is designed by Masashi Ichiko, who also designed the title logos of Afro Samurai and Kill la Kill. The logo stands for the company's location in Kyushu, as well as the values of Quick and Quality.

On the official website, Project Studio Q has opened applications for modelers, animators, directors, CG programmers, and system engineers in contract positions with monthly salaries starting at 180,000 yen.

Official site: https://studio-q.co.jp/
Official Twitter: @Project_StudioQ

Source: Anime! Anime! Biz

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19 Comments Recent Comments

i like how everyone's already jumping to conclusions. way to go again, anime community

Jul 15, 2017 4:09 PM by MZXJ

I'm not surprised they are trying to save money and I'm fine with some unnoticeable CG inserts but not when it's jarring, let alone making a whole series in CG. IIrcTsuki ga Kirei had some beautiful backgrounds and all around nice graphics ruined by CG crowds. Still or empty backgrounds are better than CG that sticks out like a sore thumb.

Jul 14, 2017 9:15 AM by Antanaru

Antanaru said:
What is there to get. CG is just plain ugly and a complete downgrade to traditional animation. It exists only to save money, not to make animation better. Some CG shows are considered remotely good only because something else is making up for their ugliness or they don't look as bad as you would expect from CG (i. e. Sidonia).

You aren't wrong that some of these are used to saved money, but of course because of the "current" state of the industry... can you really blame anyone of the animators for relying on CG to save up not only money, but pressure too?

Just getting the jist of it but then again this is just how I think of it.

Jul 14, 2017 3:08 AM by removed-user

What is there to get. CG is just plain ugly and a complete downgrade to traditional animation. It exists only to save money, not to make animation better. Some CG shows are considered remotely good only because something else is making up for their ugliness or they don't look as bad as you would expect from CG (i. e. Sidonia).

Jul 14, 2017 1:57 AM by Antanaru

i never understood the hate for cgi... it does abused, but it can said for everything TBH... and they are keep improving anyways...

Jul 13, 2017 9:11 PM by Kuma

Oh the word shit in the title of the thread ? Lol
Anyways I wonder how much they'll help CG animation. I don't hate CG, but I don't prefer it at the same time for anime.

Jul 13, 2017 3:15 PM by Shishou_23

NoLiferSoul said:

Symphyon said:

I think I have worded it wrong but I just don't get the generalization for people saying CG are shit or something. That's what I wanted to exactly point at.

But there are animes that were done in CG and those were good (Sidonia, Bubuki Buranki, Sekaisuru Kado, Precure in some sense, etc).

I mean I myself prefer hand drawn artstyle myself over CG but if the CG is done well or at least tolerable enough I'm fine with it as well.

Berserk 2016/2017 are one of the biggest examples of terrible CG. Especially with how they tried to add bit of hand-drawn and it doesn't look natural. But then again, these two studios were newbies from what I got so in some degree I can't blame them. But one of them should stick with hand drawn and the other should try to work on things better.

Sadly I didn't watch any of these but after going through a few images and watching the trailer of Bubuki Buranki I am still not convinced. The graphics, at least in my opinion, look pretty bad (even if the animation in Precure looks pretty solid). I've asked a friend of mine as well who has watched more cg anime than I have and he has the same opinion as me.

CG like in Precures case might be toleratable but it's still a downgrade if the characters and objects look like shiny plastic. CG might not be "shit" but you can't deny that most of the time it's poorly executed especially when new studios use it.

Understandable if you can't really get into it and that's fine. Hmm for the general thing when it comes to CG I can't deny that at least "a lot" of them are poorly executed to where it looks either poorly rendered or looked. Maybe this is just me since I'm more open towards stuff like these.

And I think the reason why I am more opened is while it's a different medium, american movies have been mostly relying on CG so I'm just going to go and give Japs a chance since they're just recently starting to go more into it. Of course I don't want them to stay away from 2D because in some sense that's what makes anime as it is in a way, but 3D are still accepted by me to some degree. ^^U

And btw if this comes off as me either being preachy or something, not really I just want to give my two cents on the matter on this :P

Jul 13, 2017 3:14 PM by removed-user

Symphyon said:

NoLiferSoul said:

Just a small reminder that Berserk 2016 - 2017 exists. CG doesn't look nice at all and I prefer the drawn style over it anytime. Also the animation looks like it's stuttering.

Jul 13, 2017 3:01 PM by NoLiferSoul

NoLiferSoul said:

Symphyon said:
To be honest I don't really get the hate for CG but whatever, digressing that.

Will see how they work on this one because if they're going to make another company this should be kind of interesting, dunno.

Just a small reminder that Berserk 2016 - 2017 exists. CG doesn't look nice at all and I prefer the drawn style over it anytime. Also the animation looks like it's stuttering.

Granted not all CGI is bad. Take these for example.

Jul 13, 2017 2:39 PM by Calal-Chan

NoLiferSoul said:

Just a small reminder that Berserk 2016 - 2017 exists. CG doesn't look nice at all and I prefer the drawn style over it anytime. Also the animation looks like it's stuttering.

Jul 13, 2017 2:27 PM by removed-user

Just a small reminder that Berserk 2016 - 2017 exists. CG doesn't look nice at all and I prefer the drawn style over it anytime. Also the animation looks like it's stuttering.

Jul 13, 2017 2:21 PM by NoLiferSoul

To be honest I don't really get the hate for CG but whatever, digressing that.

Will see how they work on this one because if they're going to make another company this should be kind of interesting, dunno.

Jul 13, 2017 12:20 PM by removed-user

im not worried since 2.5D animation or 3DCG will continue to improve and become cheaper

and also 3DCG is the likely answer to the animator shortage crisis since it only needs few staff to make

Jul 13, 2017 12:02 PM by deg

So, the dark ages of anime are incoming. Well, fu*k.
Ok. Another studio is being saved on my blacklist.

Jul 13, 2017 11:49 AM by rsc-pl

Oh no, not CG. Anime needs it as much as idols, moeblobs, foodporn, isekai or shitty MC. Come Khara, stop screwing around and make that damn 4.0. Then you can die in a pool of CG vomit.

Jul 13, 2017 11:28 AM by Antanaru

Can't they all just be friends again, and return to Gainax?

Jul 13, 2017 9:41 AM by Kleferi

Oh great, the 3DCGPD dark age that's the future is coming at a more rapid pace.

Jul 13, 2017 9:37 AM by Hoppy

Not surprising coming from khara after their "animatorexpo" and knowing what kind of hopes Anno has for Evangelion.

Paulo27 said:
Looking forward to 4.0 having CG done by beginners.

Would it really look more average than the masses in the second movie or the 3DCGI pasting on the robots (in the three movies, I think) ?

Jul 13, 2017 9:36 AM by Rei_III

Looking forward to 4.0 having CG done by newbies.

Jul 13, 2017 9:05 AM by Paulo27