Katsuhiro Otomo just opened a new animation studio called OVAL GEAR

STU announced today that manga artist and film director Katsuhiro Otomo has established a new animation production studio, OVAL GEAR animation studio. The Tokyo-based company is already in production on its first projects. Otomo created the studio to cultivate new talent and pass his highly detailed visual style down to the next generation of animators.

This is a rare structural move for the director. Otomo has traditionally worked as a freelancer or guest director across established production houses like Sunrise and Studio 4°C. Now he has his own dedicated roof.

Forty years of Neo-Tokyo

Otomo started drawing manga in the 1970s. His 1980 psychic thriller Domu: A Child's Dream put him on the map, but Akira cemented his global reputation. The manga ran from 1982 to 1990. Otomo directed the landmark 1988 film adaptation himself. He insisted on a framerate and level of background detail that pushed the Japanese animation industry to its absolute breaking point. His obsession with realistic mechanical physics and architectural destruction changed how the world viewed the medium.

He followed that massive success with the sci-fi anthology Memories in 1995 and the Victorian steampunk feature Steamboy in 2004. Both projects utilized his signature mechanical design, though neither reached the cultural saturation of his cyberpunk masterpiece.

The graveyard of remakes

I own the complete Akira graphic novel set and now I need to re-read them!

There have been a few false starts of Akira remakes and continuations of the animated story over the decades. Warner Bros. Has been trying to get a live-action film off the ground since 2002. The studio has cycled through directors ranging from Ruairi Robinson to Taika Waititi without ever rolling a camera. In 2019, Sunrise announced a new anime project intended to adapt the entire manga storyline. The studio went completely silent on the project shortly after the initial press conference.

Otomo also announced his next original feature film, Orbital Era, at that same 2019 event. The sci-fi coming-of-age story is set on a space colony. The establishment of OVAL GEAR might be the vehicle required to finally get that film across the finish line.

A long shadow over games

Otomo's influence on video games is massive, even if his direct involvement is sparse. His aesthetic DNA is baked into almost every cyberpunk game released in the last thirty years.

Actual video game adaptations of his work are mostly historical curiosities. Taito published an Akira visual novel for the Famicom in 1988. THQ canceled a Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis action game in the 1990s after multiple failed redesigns. Bandai later released a Steamboy game for the PlayStation 2 in 2005 that never left Japan.

The timing of OVAL GEAR makes sense given the broader entertainment landscape. The 1980s and 1990s anime aesthetic that Otomo helped pioneer is currently experiencing a massive resurgence. Developers are actively chasing the look of cel-shaded animation and hyper-detailed mechanical designs. Shapefarm's upcoming Switch 2 co-op game Orbitals is a prime example of this trend. The game is built entirely around the visual language of the era Otomo defined.

OVAL GEAR gives Otomo a dedicated space to finish his pending projects. It also ensures his specific approach to animation survives him.