The official website for Toei Corp. announced in a press release on Wednesday, April 20, 2022, that they have established “Toei Animation Drawing Academy”, a short-term intensive and practical animator training program for young aspiring animators starting April 2023.

Toei will select 10  participants for the program for a year of intensive training and work in an environment concentrated on studying drawing techniques.

The program aims to train the aspiring animators to be able to work by combining the know-how of Toei’s animation style along with the skills of top animators.

The company will bear the entire tuition fee for the program, and a monthly incentive of 150,000 yen will be paid to the students.

The training period for “Toei Animation Drawing Academy” is scheduled for one year from April 2023 to March 2024.

Successful applicants who have undergone training and screening will be able to join Toei Animation as an animator on a contract basis. Moreover, the recruitment of regular new graduates of animators for the year 2023 will be terminated during this program.

A special website for “Toei Animation Drawing Academy” is now open for applicants. The application deadline for the 2023 course is July 29, 2022 (Friday).

The program will be directed by Atsutoshi Umezawa. Toei Animation’s in-house animator Takeo Ide, along with Studio Live’s Hiroshi Kojina, Nishiki Itaoka, Mai Ishii, and Mayuko Nakano will serve as instructors at the Academy.

Besides Toei, many other major and leading animation studios are increasingly introducing in-house training systems as a countermeasure against the growing shortage of animators in Japan.

Sunrise’s “Drawing School”, WIT Studio’s “WIT Animator School”, Studio Ponoc’s “Animator Training Program (PPAP)”, Bond’s “Drawing Department member recruitment”, etc. are some active anime studios that launched similar programs.

Source: Toei Press Release