Legendary Japanese artistYoshitaka Amanoappeared as a featured guest at Anime Expo 2026. Famous for his critical role in shaping character designs for countless video game franchises, includingFinal Fantasy, Amano drew great attention at the convention, where he and his team discussed his new eponymous companyYoshitaka Amano Inc. and his upcoming animation project,ZAN. Anime Trending had the honor of speaking with Amano,ZANproducersHiroaki IkegamiandMari Suzuki, andZANdirector of animationTooru Yoshidaon the origin and inner workings of this daring new venture.
You recently announcedZAN, an original anime project based on your artwork. What can audiences expect from it, and what part of bringing it to life are you most excited about?
Yoshitaka Amano:I’m most excited about bringing people into this world, and it’s a way to express what I’m thinking. Of course, people are free to interpret what they want from that world and from my voice.
What is the story behind bringing this staff together for this project?
Hiroaki Ikegami:We didn’t have to go out and scout anyone for the project. Many creators came forward themselves, wanting the chance to be involved with Yoshitaka Amano.Ryosuke TakahashiandMoriyasu Taniguchiare two legendary creators of the industry, and they came to us directly. In Japan, they’re known as true masters, maestros of that era of anime. Since this was something they’d never had the chance to do before, they both said, “We’re in!”
ZANis being brought to life through non-digital animation techniques in an industry that’s increasingly embracing digital. Why was that important to you, and how does it shape the artistic vision for the project?
Hiroaki Ikegami:For a lot of younger people, a fully traditional hand-drawn work might actually be a new medium or a new experience. People nowadays are used to things that are totally rendered through CG or other digital means, so a completely hand-drawn animation could be something completely new for them.
Another thing is that Amano-san is someone who only makes art with his hands. He’s a completely analog artist who only needs his hands and eyes to draw his art. Thus, it goes without saying that because that’s how he affects his mediums and how he works his art — we should keep that same approach within the animation itself. So we take where we came from with the hand-drawn art of Yoshitaka Amano and move that forward into the animation itself.
Yoshitaka Amano:Since that’s how I work in my own art, I wanted to carry that same approach into the animation. I was originally an animator atTatsunoko Production, and many people in the industry are my friends and longtime companions. If you think about it, we’ve been in the industry for about six decades. People like Takahashi-san, who’s 83 now, were there since I entered the industry at age 14. These are the people I can trust because they’ve always been there even when I was doing work-for-hire at Tatsunoko.
Hiroaki Ikegami:In some of our discussions, even last night, we talked about whether we should use CG at all and how far we should take this. It’s nearly impossible to make everything 100% hand-drawn, but for the main characters and elements, we want to stick to this traditional hand-drawn approach. Digital is simply a tool; it’s not the means to an end. In terms of interpreting what humans created, what humans drew, using digital means is simply an application tool to get to the end, but shouldn’t be what creates it itself. Everything should come from a human’s hand.
Yoshitaka Amano:We don’t have a million people as animators on this project. There was a time in history when you could zoom out and imagine a million people working on the cel animation together. Those eras certainly had their place in history, but now it’s difficult, especially with what we’re trying to do.
Tooru Yoshida:My background is mostly analog hand-drawn work, but even with digital tools, people need to maintain and preserve the ability to draw by hand; once that ability disappears, it’s gone. Sometimes when you ask artists to draw something on a piece of paper, you might find that they even struggle to draw the things they created, because they’ve gotten so used to the digital format.
High school students have asked me how to improve as an artist. The answer is simple: you have to just go and draw. If you don’t draw, then nothing gets better. There’s no way to eliminate the human element entirely and just expect whatever digital or AI means to create something. The intentional act of drawing is something that should be preserved, and the way to preserve it is to keep doing it ourselves.
As a production, what kind of pressure do you face when making this conscious effort to maintain this traditional style versus using digital tools?
Tooru Yoshida:There’s not much that we can’t draw by hand, but the interpretation of the artist is important because when you ask an AI image generator, “Draw me bread,” it can make a sandwich, a croissant, anything. You have to take it in stride and ask, “What is trying to be reflected here?” and that’s always at the hands of the artists. It’s not something that we’re toiling over; it’s a tool after all.
ZANdescribes itself as a dark fantasy across time and space. What is the most compelling aspect of the dark fantasy genre to you? What are your biggest influences and inspirations behindZAN?
Yoshitaka Amano:ZANis a battle between the light and dark within people, a tale as old as time.
Mari Suzuki: There’s a lot that goes into it, such as the theme of fatherly love or the exhilaration of a hero cutting down evil with a sword.
Yoshitaka Amano:But it’s about the timeless tale of humanity having a dark side and a light side, and in the end, what you are left with and which side will win out is the ongoing theme throughoutZAN. There are good things to be found in the dark side, and there can be something new to be found in the darkness of people as well.
ZANoriginated as the art project DEVA ZAN in 2013. What was the original vision behind this project? For this new original anime project, has the vision changed since the initial concept, or do you see this as a continuation of your original vision?
Mari Suzuki:It actually started more grandiosely in 2013, with the idea of doing 3D CG, since that was the big new thing back then. But as time went on, it evolved back toward its roots to hand-drawn 2D illustration.
Tooru Yoshida:The book itself was published in 2013, and it’s basically a bible for ZAN. Because the story transcends space and time, the characters can exist in any era, so we were able to pull from that book — maybe about a tenth of those stories — and put it together into what we wanted for this project. There was a lot of material to draw from, and we’re obviously not going to include all of it in the anime, but we use what we want. It’s actually rather convenient, because we can do whatever we feel like. If we want to do something set in the past, we can; the future or the present, we can do that too. It lends itself really well to that kind of flexibility.
AlongsideZAN, you also announced Yoshitaka Amano Inc. What does it mean to you to launch a company under your own name, and what are your goals for it?
Yoshitaka Amano:When I started working forTatsuo Yoshida, that was Yoshida’s company. Other people went on to have their own companies — Tezuka had one, Disney had one — and they were all named after the individual because the driving force was the person themselves. So just like they had their own companies, I wanted to have one, Yoshitaka Amano Inc., that’s just like Miyazaki or Tezuka or anyone else, where they could be the driving element; in a way it’s rather simple. But also, when it comes to animation, you need a team and company to make it happen. That’s why I wanted to establish my own and have that space.
The story ofZANcrosses time and space with a fast-paced, sci-fi action-fantasy edge and stylish heroes at its center. What drew you to that kind of world, and how does it reflect the themes you’ve explored throughout your career?
Yoshitaka Amano:It’s not about themes that I’ve explored throughout my career. In the past, I was hired to create a character that already existed, such as inFinal Fantasy,where I was given a character and a basic description, and I would draw the character and make a mythology. ForVampire Hunter D, I was given the book, read the story, and created the characters and mythology. So for this project, it’s actually quite different. I’ve created the main character on my own, and now we get to see where that leads. I don’t know if there is any reflection on things I’ve done in the past or if there are connective themes from that, but this is our own original work where I am not interpreting the works of another.
So would you say that it is creation for the sake of creation itself?
Yoshitaka Amano:I’m very simple and particular about what I like, so it’s just like how the things I like to eat don’t change very much. I like beef, and so I’ll eat steak or a beef stew. [laughs] I wanted to draw this character, and so that’s what this is.
Do you have any last closing thoughts onZANand what this project means to you?
Hiroaki Ikegami:Everything starts with what’s happening here today, and now that we’ve announced that we have a promise to the world to deliver it, we’re going to give it our best and do what we can to bring what we’ve talked about today to the world.
Special thanks to Yoshitaka Amano and his team for the interview opportunity.
Questions by Isabelle Lee and Nico Monterosso. Interview conducted by Audrey Im and Nico Monterosso.
