Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira and Steamboy director) has founded OVAL GEAR Animation Studio, a Tokyo-based studio that seeks to “pass on to the new generation the filmmaking methods and authorial sensibility Katsuhiro Otomo has cultivated over decades, and to produce new animated works for global release.”
The studio is now working on its first production and is currently looking for animation and production staff (specifically, in-between animators, assistant in-between checkers, production assistants, and production desks).
OVAL GEAR Animation Studio is a subsidiary of entertainment company ANDENT, which was known as stu until today. In November, ANDENT began development on a “3D-layout-based AI animation production pipeline” in partnership with Megalis VFX founder Daniel Perez Ferreira and CG studio CafeGroup.
In 2019, Otomo was attached to a new anime film titled Orbital Era, described as an “action-adventure story of some boys in this peculiar environment and society who keep living their lives while they’re being tossed about by fate,” and an Akira TV anime, both produced by Sunrise. Currently, the status of those projects is currently unclear. At the time of writing, the Orbital Era website is inaccessible, and the announcement article on Sunrise’s website appears to have been removed (Wayback Machine’s last snapshot of the website was in March, while the last snapshot of the latter was in December 2025).
Otomo will be part of the upcoming TEZUKA! God of Manga Documentary, as one of many creatives who were interviewed.
Last year, the Otomo-created anime omnibus film MEMORIES received a 4K remaster that screened in Japan for two weeks.
Sources: Press release 1, press release 2, OVAL GEAR Animation Studio website
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