Interview with Bahi JD

Today I have the privilege of bringing you an interview with our very own homegrown pro animator, Bahi JD, who in a matter of a few years has gone from drawing gifs on the forum for fun to animating in high-profile anime productions like Kids on the lope! Bahi"s achievement is uni#ue! $oreigners have infiltrated the ranks for a while now, but Bahi is a telecommuting animator in %ustria who, with no formal training, managed to find a place for himself in the industry essentially through the infectious force of his enthusiasm for animation! I think part of the reason for Bahi"s success is that he"s inspired by the fundamental power of movement that pulses through the veins of all of the master animators of Japan, not a slavish copier of surface anime features! &e"s an inspiration showing that it can be done if you have the talent and 'ust sit down and animate and show that you can do it!

Ben( &ow did you first become interested in animation) Bahi( &ehe, this #uestion pulls me back into my first childhood memories! *D I don"t have any clear memories from that time, but I"m sure this process started before my school time! %t the time I

en'oyed lots of Japanese cartoons like +ippon %nimation"s ,-orld .asterpiece Theater, shows as e/ample and all the other cartoons from the west and east that many kids were watching! But the key for me to understanding and getting interested in animation even more came when my parents gave me a flipbook with a car on it! By flipping it over and over and watching all the pictures make that car move, I started to kind of think about the process behind cartoons and I really en'oyed making this car move, so I became interested in making my own flipbook and making my own characters move and tell a story! I was already drawing a lot at that time and it was very e/citing for me to make my drawings move, they would feel more alive! I did my first flipbook on the side of my maths book during boring school lessons! It was a simple animation with a character on the bottom and a 01 ton heavy -eight above his head bound on a string, and you know how this was going to end up! But while the string was detaching, the character was trying to eat a fly like a frog! The book had over 211 pages, so I had a lot of fun with it and each year they added 31 more pages to the new books! Ben( o we have your parents to thank for getting you interested in animation! Tell me a little bit about how you went from drawing your first flipbook to creating your first gif animation, the famous hithead %ction! -ere you creating flipbooks the whole time up until you created hithead %ction) Bahi( %h4 +o, actually after the flipbooks in my school books, nothing was really happening! I was 'ust drawing around and creating some crappy animations on paper! But I had discovered animation like %kira, Jin-5oh, 6host in the hell and.ononoke &ime so I was still highly interested in animation, only problem was that I knew nothing about anything! The real revolution and progress began in 2117 for me when I was 08! %t that time I discovered this video on 9outube about an animator named hinya :hira! %fter that, my whole view about animation changed into someting way bigger! I still consider :hira one of the greatest animators in the history of commercial animation! %fter I discovered ,sakuga .%Ds, through :hira"s video, it was like a huge e/plosion full of awesome animators! .itsuo Iso, Toshiyuki Inoue, 9utaka +akamura!!! etc etc ;the list goes on< %nd right after I discovered sakuga, I discovered %nipages, where I finally find out about these genius people behind all the wonderful animations! haha it"s kind of cra=y and funny how we are doing this interview e/actly on the place where everything began for me with the gifs *D! The gif-animations and hithead %ction began with an article you wrote called>ooking for gif animators ;where you also mentioned 5yo-?himo< and on this threadopened by &uw .illar! 9ou can 'ust scroll down through the pages and see how hithead %ction was born, ;@ A1A< lol! %fter I was introduced to easy toon through &uw ."s thread, I couldn"t stop animating with this software4 Inspired by many great animators, we started creating lots of fun and e/perimental animations on %nipages! Then I started working on hithead %ction without any plans! I 'ust drew frame by frame and I had so much fun that I couldn"t stop working on this gif! uddenly it became over 2 minutes long and the software couldn"t handle it anymore *D, so I had to end the story! hithead %ction gif-animation opened lots of doors for me, animators all around the world were inspired by the animation B en'oyed it a lot, I was really happy about it! %t that time, I also met many young Japanese animators through the web who are still very close friends of mine, and I worked with some of them recently on Takuya &osogane"s music video ,+ihonbashi Koukashita 5 Keikaku,! Ben( ?onsidering it was one of your first attempts at animation, and your first gif animation, hithead %ction blew us away with all of the good $* animation, comple/ camerawork and nascent storytelling!!! +ot to mention how ass-kickingly fun it was! -hoCwhat were your influences with hithead %ction, and in general) %nd how did you animate it) traight-through, right) -ere you studying your favorite animators) Bahi( Thanks Ben, I really appreciate it to hear that from you! Talking about the influences, I can"t really count them!!!!!every sakuga clip that I had seen was floating around in my mind! $rom $>?> animators to .itsuo Iso"s Dnd of Dvangelion scenes to 9oshihiko Emakoshi and Imaishi"s scenes in .amoru &osoda"s :ne Fiece movie to hin'i &ashimoto and :hira"s dynamic

camera angles and any other e/citing animation work that was produced until that time! The amount of Japanese sakuga influence in this gif animation was really high! But I didn"t want to copy their work, nor to look at them while I was working, although I"m sure I had a lot of these scenes in my mind and I was mi/ing them all with my own imagination to create something new and e/citing! -atching a sakuga mad before starting to work on hithead %ction was like an energy drink for me! +ot to mention that I was listening a lot to The Fillows" ,%dvice ;instrumental<, track during work! It was really cra=y and I did what I really en'oyed the most and I had lots of time for it! It was summer, I was a teenager with no big responsibilities and nothing was disturbing me in my environment! .ost of it was done straight through! I 'ust 'umped into the action, especially on the $* scenes! :n some more comple/ cuts, I had to add or remove drawings! Dasytoon was too simple for any comple/ process! It"s 'ust a tool to practice animation! If I thought that the timing wasn"t right, I removed or added a drawing! %t that time, key animation wasn"t bothering me, and I wasn"t confronted with issues like full frame, 2s or Gs either! I hadn"t read or heard anything about animation and all the definitions, techni#ues and the process behind it! I hadn"t even heard about 5ichard -illiams" ,%nimator"s urvival Kit, at that time!!! all my knowledge about animating was based on sakuga mads when I worked on hithead %ction! I didn"t even know what timing and spacing was, there was only this software and lots of animation material that I watched frame by frame and tried to understand how the movements would work for the viewer! Ben( It wasn"t long after this that you went pro! -as kullgirls your first professional 'ob) It"s a fascinating pro'ect - a western fighting game inspired by anime, built of incredibly rich sprite animation! -hat was it like working on that) %lso, what did you animateChow many shots) Bahi( 9es, kullgirls was my first professional 'ob that I started in 2100! The team was looking for animators and I contacted them without any big e/pectations! I knew nothing about the pro'ect at that time and when I started, I got really fascinated by the talents being involved in this pro'ect! The creative director B designer of kullgirls, %le/ %had, had a great response to my email when I applied for the 'ob, because he had already seen hithead %ction, so we were both really happy to get started! But before starting with the work, I did an animation test, which everyone did when they applied for the 'ob! It was a small animation move based on the ?haracter ,$ilia,! I had a great time working with the kullgirls team and the team was sharing their ideas altogether! ometimes we even had :ekaki ?hats where we drew concepts for the characters together! %le/ %had himself is a huge fan of Imaishi and 6aina/, so I introduced him more to the individual Japanese animators and 9oshinori Kanada"s ama=ing $* designs! 6ame sprite animation is different in many aspects from animating for an animation film, so at the beginning I had to do some research because I"m not a pro in fighting games! There are no cuts, but moves, and each move has a fi/ed amount of framesCdrawings that are split into , tart Ep,C,%ctive,C,Dnd frames,! $or e/ample, the start up has, let"s say, G drawings where the character is preparing to punch, active is when the punch hits the opponent, and end frames are the recovery or basically the frames that go back into the idle standard character pose ;or 'ust the pulling back of the punch<! %nd sprite animation is usually very #uick and fast! There is usually no time to animate reality based &iroyuki :kiura moves for fighting games, but rather something like 9utaka +akamura B Kanada or even #uicker than that! $ighting games are fast, the characters are mainly fast and so is the animation! -hen I started working on kullgirls, %le/ was looking for cool $* animation and he thought I could handle that because he liked the $* on hithead %ction so he gave me the complete responsibility for all the $* animation! I did much $* animation of sparks, dust, smoke and that kind of thing, and the team later worked on them and even did new $* based on my work! -hen I finished all the $* work, %le/ and .ike H ;the programmer and game designer of kullgirls< decided to give me total freedom on the character Double, a transforming monster with lots of li#uid and cra=y movements! o I was assigned to animate all of Double"s moves, but due to schedule, we split the moves among other animators! The amount of freedom of creativity I had on this character was really huge! %le/ gave me IJ3 drawings of Double and some notes about the moves I was assigned to, but everything else was up to me! I really had tremendous fun animating this shape-shifting cra=y

character! I"m also very glad that they gave me the permission to upload my work, so you can check out my kullgirls sprites at this link! Ben( %fter this I think your ne/t 'ob was Takuya &osogane"s music video ,+ihonbashi Koukashita 5 Keikaku,, right) This is a very surprising pro'ect - a cute but #uirky anime-style music video directed by an indie FK director and animated by the young generation of sakuga stars! &ow on earth did this strange thing come about) &ow did you get involved, what did you animate, and what was it like working on this pro'ect) Bahi( :h, haha, how I got involved!!!! >ong story! I was friends with 5apparu, 9otube;aka +aoki 9oshibe, aka >uckgaki< and some of the others, I found Takuya &osogane-san"s motion reel on Kimeo and I was really impressed by his work and reblogged it on my Tumblr! o somehow &osogane found out about my Tumblr and somehow we came in contact! &e also worked on the Tatami 6ala/y DD, you"ve probably seen it! %nd surprisingly, &osogane was also a good friend of 5apparu *D, we live in a small world4 %nd that"s how I met the director of ,5,! ome months later, &osogane and the producer of ,5, 9uya 9amaguchi ;who"s also a nice motion graphics artist< contacted me and asked me if I was interested in working on an animated music video they were planning to do, and that 5apparu, 9otube and &idessu were also involved! -hat could be better than working on a pro'ect with friends) &idessu was the animation supervisor of the pro'ect! &e"s also a very talented young artist! ome might have seen his short film recently on 9outube! o I got involved and there was again a big surprise( 5yo-?himo and hingo 9amashita were also participating in the pro'ect! o we worked on this music video which was based on the I% Kocaloid character, designed by 5yunosuke-san"s .a/illa Team, and composer Jin was working on a new %lbum, and the team was planning to put the music video as a bonus on the album disk! The song is now Top 01 in some Japanese charts! The character design was originally done by %ka %kasaka but illustrator +ame created another new version of the character! It"s cool and it fits in my opinion! 9ama-san was our e/ecutive advisor the whole time, but he also did key-animation and really gave lots of advice during production! I think 5apparu was in contact with 9ama-san, so that"s how everyone got involved in this pro'ect! $riends asked other friends to participate and it happened! ome other people I knew from earlier that I didn"t even know were animators were also involved in the pro'ect, as well as many other very great young talents that I had heard about! o it was a great collaboration of the new generation of web-animators! I think some people were still missing haha! There are a lot more people in this circle of animators! ome might also think of Kenichi Kutsuna! &osogane was inspired by .%D clips on this pro'ect, so the more animators, the more fun! +ow let"s talk about the real work, I was the only animator outside Japan, but that made no difficulties during work thanks to the power of the internet! .y Japanese is still terrible but 9uya and &osogane speak good Dnglish, and 5yunosuke from .a/illa speaks great too, so we had no communication problems! -e worked through kype and Dropbo/ every day, and everything worked great! -e had all our stuff on the web, and we also shared an online time-sheet, which was ama=ing, because sometimes I could see who was writing his time-sheet on the document live! The fact that we shared everything together helped me understand the animation process much more, and I really learned a lot during the production, because this was the first animation pro'ect I worked on with a professional team! -ell, some were rookies, including me, but 9ama"s knowledge helped me make a lot of improvement! 9ama-san had made a layout sheet file in $lash, which almost everyone was doing the key animation on! -e mostly did everything digitally in $lash! ugimoto was one of the few that worked analog! The last cut was done by him, for e/ample! &e also made a beautiful short recently, check it out! $or more details about the animators, there is a making of version of the music video which also includes the animator list! %nd here are the rough versions of my cuts and everything else I did for the music video! %s you can see, there are also some layouts! %s usual, the animators also drew the layoutCbackground and final composition for their scenes! I was also in charge of two other layouts

that I didn"t animate! &osogane asked me to do them, and it was my pleasure! Ha'irogh, the background designer of the pro'ect, also did great work! &e changed some elements in some of my layouts, and I like his version better! I animated I cuts and each one brings back some fun memories! Dspecially the grilled sea shell ,&amaguri, ; < cut! I was in charge of animating this hamaguri thing, and I really knew nothing about seafood! eriously, I don"t get the chance to eat seafood, and I had never ever eaten or seen hamaguri before! o I was talking with the team and they told me that &amaguri pops up by itself when it"s ready to eat, and I was like ,%re they alive while they get grilled)4, and I still don"t know the answer! o basically, I went totally retarded when it was about this hamaguri cut, and I 'ust had no idea how to animate it so that it would look believable to the Japanese audience! I went to get some of these and grill them to understand the animation ;grill for the sake of animation >:><, but didn"t find any that day *D so I wound up animating this hamaguri from my fantasy, and I hope it didn"t end up too unreal! *D But yeah, the &amaguri scene still gets mentioned in my friends circle *D and &osogane also talked about it in interviews haha! I 'ust call it the ,yoyo fantasy hamaguri,! o yup, for me, it was a great pleasure and an honor to work with these great talents and we had lots of fun working on ,+ihonbashi Koukashita 5 Keikaku,, because everyone was 'ust cool and yoyo, we shared all our ideas together and created this music video with &osogane-san"s vision B passion for sakuga madCamv and I hope that the audience also had fun watching the music video! Ben( That brings us to your recent and much-talked-about official TK anime debut( hinichiro -atanabe"s Kids on the lope for .%FF%! 9ou"ve come a long way in 'ust two years! % prestigious debut by any measure, made all the more remarkable by the fact that you have never inbetweened, and are not even located in Japan! &ow did you get involved, what shots did you animate, and what was it like working on an actual anime pro'ect for the first time) Bahi( &mmm, actually the fact that I didn"t start as an inbetweener felt at the beginning like a disadvantage for me because, as a key animator, you are cooperating with the inbetween ;doga< artist! They have to understand your work to be able to work on it later, so you have to understand them too! But later on, I reali=ed that in my situation it was not a big problem that I had no e/perience as an inbetweener! I informed myself about the whole doga process even though I wound up drawing both key animation and inbetweens for %pollon! I 'ust wanted to make sure I knew who was responsible for the inbetween, cleanup and tracing processes, in what kind of environment, and in which studio, because it"s always an advantage to know about that before you start with your work! There is a lot to say about the doga process, but let"s get started with the main #uestions haha! o how did I get involved) ome people say that sometimes things 'ust happen suddenly, but I think nothing happens suddenly! Dverything has a long process, and needs some time to happen! This again brings me back to 211L! If I hadn"t contacted ?indy 9amauchi-san in 211L, I"m not sure I would be where I am right now! omehow in 211L I came across her blog where she talked about very interesting issues about working in the anime industry! I thought that nothing could be better than to get advice about my future career plan as a freelance key animator from an e/perienced senior animator like her, so I wrote to her and asked basic stuff like, ,Is it possible to get a 'ob as a freelancer even if you live in another country), he replied to me very kindly, and it was the greatest advice that anyone ever gave me, that the simple answer was( ,no,! %t that time, I was a high school student who was lacking both the social and professional skills needed to survive in such a risky environment! o yup, I needed a lot of e/perience for this and I went for it! &onestly, I didn"t really have high hopes of getting a 'ob the way I have now! I thought it would take much longer than it did! But I still went for it! I 'ust knew someday it would happen if I would continue! o in 2100 after I was done with my work on Konami"s kullgirls, I was like, ,:K, what do I do now), I was also working on my own animated short film at that time but I needed and wanted a new 'ob to gain more e/perience among a team of professional artists! o I contacted 9amauchi-san again ;I hadn"t talked to her since 211L< and she was very happy with my progress during the intervening

years! o she decided to give me a chance, and showed my portfolio to producer .asao .orosawasan, who was also impressed! I was 'ust so happy and e/cited that it had finally happened! It was 'ust awesome when I later found out that the pro'ect I would be working was being directed by hinichiro -atanabe, because I"m a huge fan of amurai ?hamploo and %nimatri/( Kid"s tory, they are 'ust one of my all time favorites! It was not the typical -atanabe-san pro'ect, but it showed that he really is talented and capable of handling and coming up with great results in any genre! %nd he has great taste in music! I listen to the amurai ?hamploo soundtrack all the time when I"m working! +u'abe"s music especially is very rela/ing! I was signed up for episode 7, which featured 9amauchi-san as animation supervisor! I had two options for which cuts to work on( There was one with less action, and less work, and there was a challenging crowd scene! I asked them if it was possible to give me as much action as possible! I chose to work on the crowd scene that was part of the clima/ of the episode, interspersed with entaro and Kaoru"s 'a== session! It was the most interesting part to me and I thought I would get more e/perience out of it because I had never done anything like that! o +obutaka Ito and I ;he animated entaro on the drums< were involved in the climactic scene! It was great to see Ito-san"s work between my own! This might sound awkward, but I was really proud and honored, because he is such a great artist! adly I"m not sure who worked on Kaoru"s piano! 9ou can see the whole scene and find some more info about it here! I animated G shots, and drew the layout for all L of the crowd shots where the students are running and telling each other to come check out the 'am session! I will upload the rough animation work and layouts later on my Tumblr blog when I get permission! I gained so much e/perience from my first time working on an anime pro'ect! It was ama=ing! 9ou have to be really fast, especially me because I was doing both genga B doga - the full animation and I was the only animator working digitally! But it didn"t make any difference in the end! Dverything worked out great through the internet with my line-producer and coordinator Tanaka-san! Tanakasan and 9amauchi-san gave me lots of freedom on my shots! But actually, when I finished my first shot, it was too hin'i &ashimotoC hinya :hira"ish, i!e! loose and too much myself and off-model! I did it on purpose, to be honest, because I wanted the shots to stand out, but I now reali=e that this kind of behavior can sometimes be very selfish and very risky for a pro'ect! The whole pro'ect could take a hit because of this kind off stuff! I got that shot back and fi/ed it as #uickly as possible! :therwise the animation supervisor would have fi/ed and changed it! It all depends on the pro'ect whether you can go cra=y and stylish with the animation! 9ou can do stuff like that on pro'ects like $>?> or .ind 6ame, for e/ample, but not on most the TK shows! But that didn"t stop me from putting my creative energy into the shots! I could still animate the characters the way I wanted! If there is a limit that you"d better not go beyond because doing so would be playing with the other team members" time and livelihoods, you have to find a way to move forward and not 'ust stand there and complain that you can"t do this or that! 9ou have to try something else that could open new doors! o there was still another way to make the shots stand out! I drew the characters clean and followed the rules and totally focused on the movement! omething that stood out to some Japanese viewers who emailed me was the way the students called the other students! The way they move their hand to call the students is totally not Japanese! omeone who saw the episode emailed me and told me that she was really surprised by the calling gesture and en'oyed it, but thought it looked very DuropeanCwestern, so since I was the only one in the credits with a non-Japanese name, she was sure it was me who did those cuts >:>! I didn"t do this on purpose@ the problem was my lack of knowledge about Japanese culture! -e would have fi/ed it if there was more time to make the gesture more Japanese, but it"s not such a huge disaster actually since it"s an anime focused on the music and friendship, so I think people will be :K about those shots haha! But I animated the gestures the way they looked to me in the storyboard! -hat I learned from this was to always discuss even the tiniest details in the storyboard with the director, and send a few rough sketches of the movements before starting, or 'ust put a few more character drawings into the layout! %lso, another thing I struggled with at the beginning was the material of the school uniforms! The uniforms are apparently much thicker than I initially thought they

were! This was while I was working on the first shot! In later shots I animated them thicker! %lso, I tried to animate the skirts better than I usually do, so I hope the viewers like the way the skirts of the running girls move! But yes, generally, I wanted the cuts to feel both light and realistic, and I hope the audience en'oyed them! The G cuts I animated can also be viewed on my website as small gifs, but I will try to get permission to upload the rough genga soon! Ben( Did you design the characters in your shots in Kids on the lope) Bahi( Fartly! +obuteru 9uuki-san already had drawn some samples for the random students, so while I was drawing them, I used the settei as a guide! ome of the haircuts are based on them! But yes, I 'ust drew them the way I wanted mainly! It was 'ust important to make them look casual and similar to the settei! Ben( 9ou mentioned that you were the only animator animating digitally on Kids on the lope! Is animation in the anime industry drawn mostly digitally or still on paper) %lso, how does the animation process differ between the two methods) Bahi( &mmm, I would say that digital animation is growing but the ma'ority still works analog! I know many young digital animators but also many that animate on paper! It really doesn"t make any difference for the production company! They can handle both digital and analog work! They will print your digital work on paper when they hand it over to the sakuga kantoku! o, the process doesn"t change! The sakuga kantoku will fi/ some little details ;usually analog< to make it fit to the main design and then your work gets traced ;digitally< no matter what, it makes the lines look more solid! It depends on the production but that"s the usual process! I can imagine that animators like &isashi .ori get more involved in the further production to keep their line style in the final rendering! Ben( -hat programs do you use to animate) Bahi( ?urrently, $lash, to be more specific, %dobe $lash ? 3! hingo 9amashita, 5yo-?himo and many other also use $lash! ome people think that you can"t really draw in $lash, and at the beginning it"s true, but you get used to it after some practice and get to the point where you can draw any line you want like you can in Fhotoshop! :f course, Fhotoshop"s lines are way more accurate, but $lash is a better tool for animation! Ben( Don"t you use a special custom layout file) Bahi( %ctually, maybe I overreacted about this file, but for me it is really great! I asked 9ama-san for permission before I started to continue using the file for other pro'ects of course! It looks like a normal layout sheet, with pegbar holes and stuff but the good thing is that it has a simple script that shows the timer in both frames and seconds, which is set to 2Ifps! It"s really good when you want to #uickly synch the time on the storyboard or the time-sheet with your key-animation work! $lash itself also shows the current frame number, but this layout file is more specific and looks like this! >ooks simple, and it is simple, but for me it"s huge! Ben( 9ou drew layouts in %pollon, but some of the shots had ?6 backgrounds, so how were the layouts for these shots handled) Bahi( Enfortunately, I can only guess on this part because I wasn"t put in charge of scenes with ?6 Backgrounds! But it"s nothing comple/, they 'ust treat them like normal layouts! The only advantage is that you don"t have to spend much time drawing them! It"s a nice method to save time! $or e/ample, a classroom is very useful when it"s done in ?6, because it"s the same classroom in each episode! o why draw it over and over again if you can build it once and use it for reference for all the shots) It"s a good time saver in my opinion and also useful when you want to do comple/ camera movements@ they first animate the background animation with the ?6 B6, then the animator fits his animation to that! The GD ?6 backgrounds that have movement get treated like finished B6 animation by the animator! % very nice e/ample would be +orio .atsumoto"s ?6 B6 cut from B>::D movie! They rendered the shot in wireframes for him because it"s easier to synch the character like that!

Ben( ome people wondered whether your shots in %pollon were rotoscoped ;though some said they weren"t rotoscoped enough, go figure<! -hat do you think about rotoscoping) Bahi( -ell, first of all, my shots were not rotoscope! I view this kind of audience reaction in both a positive and negative way! Fositive because I"m glad it looked that realistic for them that they call it roto *D! But also kind of sad of course when they don"t seeCappreciate the ,animation,! But an artist should not get offended when people don"t understand his work! Feople have different opinions B thoughts and I can"t 'ust e/plain it to all of them! .y goal was to achieve my own realism in this work! atoru Etsunomiya and .itsuo Iso are a nice e/ample, their animation is believable in their own way! I personally don"t like to rotoscope, but there are some animators in the industry that do it often and some that mi/ it with animation, and some people 'ust roto because there is not enough time and etc! I have no problem with all these but it"s not my thing! I personally want my mind to do the movement and not the video-material! :ur world is full of beautiful and dynamic movements, but they are only my reference, inspiration and motivation! Ben( -hat do you think about the current state of the anime industry) Bahi( The current state is something medium! It"s ok, looking good! It"s not really the most glorious years of anime currently, but it"s not the dark ages either! There have been many ups and downs lately, but I think things will be finding their balance again soon! The payment situation could stand improvement compared to other industries, but few complain about it seriously, so nothing is likely to change soon! It could all collapse if they were to change something or increase payment! It"s a very difficult issue! -e 'ust continue because we love animation! ome friends gave up their animation career because they couldn"t work for a living as animators in Japan! But some friends are also growing bigger and bigger as gengaman! The anime industry is a very tough place, and I respect the people who survive in it and keep the animation spirit alive in these difficult working conditions! Ben( Do you sketch) Bahi( I sketch a lot, it"s fun to 'ust doodle around some stuff I have in my imagination! 5andom doodling wherever and whenever I can since childhood! *D It"s always good to sketch around to stay on the road! %nd sometimes, the sketches are worth something more maybe to continue work on or use as conceptCinspiration! Ben( %ny advice to young ;or not so young< prospective animators thinking of getting into animation generally or the anime industry specifically) Bahi( The portfolio is very important! But it"s not only about your animation skills, what the companies want to see are your layout skills too if you want to work as key animator! o practice as much as possible, both animation and layoutCcharacters and generally everything4 9our portfolio should be able to present that you are capable to do anything! 6et in touch with the people in the industry, like producersCmanagers! 9ou need to build a good connection and network with the people in the industry! Be friendly, patient and nice to people, lol this is like some general advice that everyone knows ; A 1A<b .ake gif animations or short-films and put them on web! The people have to know you and trust you and your work! If people are already familar with you and your work, you might have better chances! But the most important thing is the communication! If there is a communication barrier, nothing is going to work out! If you can afford it, fly to Japan and live there for a while ;I haven"t done this yet but it"s a great advantage4< .y advice is to be careful with your decision first of all when you want to seriously enter the industry! $irst give it a try and see if you can continue in those conditions you are faced with! %n animators life can be very hard in Japan, you have to sacrifice a lot to survive in the industry, especially at the beginning! But if you really want to do this and love working on anime more than anything else, nothing can stop you, seriously! Fassion, hard work and pursuit will bring you forward! ometimes it can be really hard, but nevermind, 'ust continue if it"s your dream! Just go for it, have fun and break the limits! I have no idea if all these are helpful but I hope someone finds it useful as an advice somehow *D! The best and simplest advice is, do animation with fun4 ; A1A<C Ben( >ast, but not least( 9oyoyo!

Bahi( 9o9o9:44 It was a great pleasure and honor for me to do this interview Ben4 %nd I hope people en'oyed it and hopefully it wasn"t too long and boring and somehow useful *D %+I.%TI:+ F:-D5444 ;M<b