Planning and production company Twin Engine, producers of the critically acclaimed Vinland Saga, has announced that it has established a new anime studio called Nogami. Leading the company is veteran producer Fumio Kaneko, who will be taking the role of representative director.
This new studio joins an umbrella of smaller teams within Twin Engine’s “EOTA” team, promising collaboration and assistance among each other. Kaneko’s experience as a producer underlines how Nogami’s spread of duties will exist outside just animation.
EOTA’s breadth of studios suggests that their ability to support each other will allow each team to specialize in different production roles. Nonetheless, press releases have Nogami promising to make original IPs, something Kaneko also should be familiar with.
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The announcement was first reported by Anime News Network. EOTA was established in 2020, and comprises multiple studios, including Colorido, Daisy and Geno. Their most recently formed groups before Nagomi were BUG FILMS and Scooter Films in 2021. Besides Kaneko, it was also reported that animators Satoru Fujimoto and Toru Imanishi would also be joining as board members. The overall organization is described as being able to pool resources to flexibly produce video content for global distribution, social media or other platforms. As for Nogami itself, while it aims to produce original anime, it also intends to go into licensing.
Kaneko has worked in the anime industry as a producer for nearly 30 years now, since at least the Saber Marionette series in 1996, though he has also notably worked on all five seasons of the Symphogear franchise as well. Twin Engine, for their part, has helped facilitate the production of anime like Vinland Saga, Golden Kamuy, and the recent successful adaptation of Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku, in part thanks to the number of studios under its umbrella. In hindsight, Kaneko and Twin Engine are a natural fit, with him being brought in to lead their newest studio by a company that would recognize his talents.
While there is no doubt the Nagomi studio will be providing new exciting anime, especially since Kaneko helped helm five seasons worth of an original IP, its secondary goal of going into licensing makes clear that it will be juggling roles. Its assistance with other studios within EOTA could involve other roles besides animation, in such a case. So it remains to be seen how Nogami will operate within the organization. Nonetheless, Kaneko’s new position is an acknowledgment of how vital he has been to anime production, and what he can bring to Twin engine and its future projects.
