Proto Anime Cut Archive

The publication Proto Anime Cut Archive presents original drawings of the most important directors and illustrators of Japanese animated films. Looking at the creative processes, the filmmakers appear as architectural dreamers who operate with virtuosity at the borders of credibility, fiction and utopia. Numerous drawings, background paintings, drafts and photographs provide insight into the working methods of the most successful animation artists and production designers of the last two decades.

Proto Anime Cut Archive presents, for the first time in a European publication the work by Hideaki Anno (director, Neon Genesis Evangelion), Haruhiko Higami (photographer), Koji Morimoto (director, Dimension Bomb), Hiromasa Ogura (art director), Mamoru Oshii (director, Patlabor, Ghost in the Shell, Innocence) and Takashi Watabe (layout).

The presented artists have played key roles in the development of Anime. By cooperating closely in different production studios in Tokyo they gave their distinctive signatures to many films and developed the prototypical Anime style.