What studio is behind ananimecan make or break the adaptation. Where some shows would prefer Studio Shaft’s sense of surrealism, others might be better off with a vanilla direction, like CloverWorks. This makes it very difficult to rank the best animation studios in Japan since each company has its own list of goods and bads.
Instead, we can list down some of the most famous anime studios behind the most revolutionary shows aired on TV. From age-old industry giants like Toei to those that have only recently achieved their popularity like Mappa, here are the most popular anime studios at present date!
8Studio Trigger
Gurren Lagann, Little Witch Academia, Kiznaiver
If you like mechs, chances are you’re a Trigger fan. From Darling in the Franxx to Gurren Lagann to Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Studio Trigger holds a monopoly over all things with a visual and mechanical spark.
Even putting aside its trademark mecha shows, critically acclaimed hits like Kill La Kill and Kiznaiver are under the Trigger label. Overall, despite its tendency to incorporate aliens into the endings of its shows, Trigger remains the producer of some of the most adrenaline-inducing shows made to date.
7Kyoto Animation
Hyouka, Chuunibyou, Violet Evergarden
Where other studios aim for the most popular shonen mangas to adapt, KyoAni instead specializes infeel-good romcoms and slice-of-life anime. The studio doesn’t shoot out one anime after another and instead focuses on the few series it does pick up, polishing them to a level worthy of the KyoAni name.
Kyoto Animation has a very distinctly adorable style, something you can see immediately as you start a show. Violet Evergarden is highly renowned for being one of the most visually striking anime made to date, and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya reached levels of popularity unheard of by anything produced in Japan prior.
6Madhouse
Hunter X Hunter, Overlord, Death Note
Madhouse is a studio that focuses on action. As such, it has a lot ofextremely popular shonen titlesto its name, including all-time greats like One Punch Man and Hunter x Hunter, as well as some great thrillers like Death Note and Nana.
Madhouse’s biggest strength is its eagerness, but that also turns out to be its worst fault, seen very clearly by the lack of production qualities and the need to use CGI in later Overlord seasons. Still, with shows like Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End coming out, it seems Madhouse is back in action.
5Toei Animation
One Piece, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon
Toei is a very controversial studio. Its mistakes with the One Piece anime’s pacing certainly make a bad image for the studio, but it’s still adapted every single arc of Oda’s best-selling manga. This problem of earlier pacing is solved In the latest episodes, which makes the future seem bright for Toei.
Putting One Piece aside, Toei is the studio behind some of the most popular shows from the older generations of anime, including various Dragon Ball adaptations, Sailor Moon, Saint Seiya, Digimon, and many more!
4Mappa
Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Attack On Titan
Mappa took the world by storm, releasingone good show after anotherright as they got the chance to adapt Attack on Titan, a show being previously worked on by Wit Studio. After that, shows like Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man set a standard of quality that revolutionized Japan’s animation industry.
However, what many don’t know is that even before AOT, Mappa had a remarkable streak of successful anime under its belt, including Dorohedoro, Inuyashiki, and Terror in Resonance.
3Studio Pierrot
Naruto, Bleach, Tokyo Ghoul
Every famous anime studio has one or two extremely popular shows that have become their representation. Shaft has Madoka Magica and the Monogatari series, Mappa has its Jujutsu Kaisen, and Toei is still working on One Piece. However, there’s rarely any studio that holds the right to the same number of hit shows as Studio Pierrot.
Two of the Big Three, Bleach and Naruto, have gotten their adaptations by Pierrot. It’s also behind some of the most beloved cult classics like Urusei Yatsura, Great Teacher Onizuka, and Yu Yu Hakusho. Even in the modern age, shows like Boruto and Black Clover have some of the biggest fan followings in recent memory.
2Ufotable
Demon Slayer, Fate
Where most other studios focus on quantity over quality in an attempt to luck out on getting one of their many series to become a hit, Ufotable takes a series and gives it a level of polish not many other studios can muster up the dedication to do so.
Ufotable showslike Demon Slayer, the Fate series, and even less popular series such as Garden of Sinners all boast some of the most beautiful animation and art in the industry. With Ufotable reportedly working on an anime for Genshin Impact, the studio doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
1Studio Ghibli
Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke
Ghibli movies are a source of nostalgia for all of us. Movies like Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle are so famous that even non-anime fans have seen them. Hayao Miyazaki’s beautiful worlds have captivated audiences all over the world, even before anime became mainstream.
Being the studio that has won the most awards for its movies, putting Studio Ghibli anywhere but at the top would be a disservice to what Miyazaki has done for animation.
