Brain??s Base
[ranking: 15]
Founded in 1996 by former members of Tokyo Movie Shinsha, Brain??s Base has been knocking it out of the park with amazing anime for decades.
Whether it's a heartwarming anime about toddlers in daycare like School Babysitters, a totally abstract thinkpiece like Mawaru Penguindrum, or a surprisingly insightful psychological exploration like My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU, Brain's Base has something to offer anime fans of all tastes.
Wit Studio
[ranking: 3]
Wit Studio is a subsidiary of Production IG. Its debut anime, Attack on Titan, aired in 2013, and quickly earned a spot among the best anime of all time. Not too shabby for a first effort.
Since then, Wit Studio has continued to astonish viewers with amazing anime like Hozuki's Coolheadedness, After The Rain, and The Ancient Magus' Bride.
Production IG
[ranking: 8]
A-1 Pictures
[ranking: 7]
A-1 Pictures was created in 2005 for the purposes of providing animation for Aniplex titles. Since then, they've blossomed into a fully functional studio.
Their first effort produced Big Windup!, a baseball anime known for its finely developed characters. Since then, A-1 Pictures has worked on popular shonen anime like Sword Art Online and Fairy Tail, while also taking on tragic romances like Your Lie in April, and down-to-earth stories like Silver Spoon.
Shaft
[ranking: 13]
Shaft was founded in 1975, but their anime took an avant-garde turn in 2005 when director Akiyuki Shinbo gained control of the studio's creative direction.
Earlier works include Cyborg 009: The Cyborg Soldier and Mahoromatic: Automatic Maiden; two action-oriented series that never made a huge stylistic impact.
More recent efforts include Puella Magi Madoka Magica, a dark deconstruction of the magical girl genre, the densely metaphorical Monogatari series, and March Comes In Like A Lion, a psychological portrait of a depressed shogi player.
Sunrise
[ranking: 6]
Sunrise is one of the largest and most renowned anime studios in history. Comprised of over 10 separate studios that all work on different projects, Sunrise is responsible for hundreds of anime in countless genres.
When ex-employees of Osamu Tezuka's Mushi Production formed the studio in 1972, the goal was to not prioritize the vision of any particular director (the way that Mushi had with Tezuka). Instead, they envisioned a group effort driven by the leadership of multiple producers.
Eager to distinguish themselves by specializing in a specific genre, Sunrise chose to focus on mecha anime and began developing the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. Later works like Cowboy Bebop and Code Geass still focus on futuristic machinery, though Sunrise has also developed shows like Yakitake! Japan which focuses on bread-baking rather than robots.
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#7 of 41 on The 30+ Best Animation Companies in the World #197 of 234 on The Top Animation Studios
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