The Fall 2019 Manga Guide

Animeta

What's It About? 

Ever since Miyuki Sanada saw one certain anime in high school, she's dreamed of becoming an animator, specifically at N2, the studio that produced her favorite show. Now at age nineteen she's ready to apply, but she's never had any formal training and her art skills aren't really up to snuff. She's about to fail the interview when a director realizes how keen her observation skills are and realizes that she has the potential to make it as an animator…if she can improve her art, learn the lingo, and survive on an inbetweener's salary. The path to Miyuki's dream isn't going to run smoothly, but she may have what it takes to do it no matter what. Animeta! is written and illustrated by Yaso Hanamura. It was released by J-Novel Club in September both in paperback ($14.99) and digitally ($8.99).

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

I'm not always a fan of industry stories, but Animeta! manages to hit a beautiful balance between teaching us about the ins and outs of the animation business in Japan and telling a good story. That it does so by sacrificing a bit of its heroine's dignity is unfortunate, but there really wasn't any other plausible way to get us in at the ground level – if Miyuki was a talented artist, there'd be no reason for us to learn about the struggles and basics of doing the clean-up and in-between animation, or at least not an organic one. And a large part of Animeta!'s success as a title about animation is that it doesn't info-dump. Miyuki has the passion and love for animation that she needs to make it, but she also doesn't know much about the actual process or the way the industry functions; essentially she's a fan trying to get into the professional world, and that means that she's not going to have an easy time.

Not that anyone is, really – Animeta! doesn't make any bones about the hard work expected of animators for very little pay. In fact, one of the concerns the staff voices is that Miyuki doesn't have parents to financially support her during the first two years of her employment, indicating that she's not going to make enough to live during that time, which is ridiculous by most standards. But that's how it works, and the series would be doing a disservice to its readers if it didn't acknowledge that fact – or the thought that several people think that perhaps training Miyuki from the ground up is ultimately going to cost the studio more time and effort than it can afford.

Fortunately Miyuki does have those observational skills going for her, which is secretly what got her hired by her favorite director in the first place. She's basically being groomed to direct rather than animate, although the book acknowledges that she's going to need those skills as well to properly do what her secret purple note mentor (nice nod to Glass Mask, that) is prepping her for. That makes this a good combination of drama, information, and a mix of art styles, so if you have any interest in animation as a process, this is absolutely a story you should be picking up.