Leviathan Staff Discuss International Anime Production

If you’ve kept up with the spate of anime co-productions in the last five to 10 years, you may have noticed a new name among the credits: Qubic Pictures. Formed in 2018 by Justin Leach — a producer, former 3-D artist, and veteran of Production I.G., Lucasfilm, and Blue Sky Studios — Qubic and Leach himself have served as the glue holding together a number of co-productions between Western creators and the anime industry. This includes the first edition of Star Wars Visions, featuring contributions from studios like Trigger and Science Saru; and Eden, an original sci-fi anime created by Leach himself. And coming later this year is Leviathan, a 3-D animated adaptation of Scott Westerfeld’s alt-history sci-fi/fantasy novel series, produced by Trigun Stampede and Beastars’ Studio Orange.

Last summer at Otakon 2024, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Leach and producer Katrina Minett from Qubic, as well as Leviathan director Christophe Ferreira, to discuss their experience bridging the gap between Japan and the West and more. Enjoy!

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Ani-Gamers (Evan Minto): Qubic Pictures is not a traditional anime studio in the sense that most fans understand it. Can you explain how Qubic slots into the production process and how it’s different from a typical studio?

Justin Leach: We’re what can be described as a “production planning” or “producing” company. So what we can provide for someone, like in Hollywood, for example, is, if they want to work with Trigger or another studio that they have in mind, and they have some property that would interest said studio, then we can help act as a bridge. We can help produce that for the Hollywood company. Qubic can provide all the translation, scheduling, budgeting, all the logistical producing type of work. We also oversee things creatively with the partners that we are working with. Although our approach typically is more side-by-side, not an outsourcing style. So for example with Orange, they are at all of our story development meetings and we invite them to give comments and notes on Christophe’s work. That’s very important for us. We’re basically a producing company that helps make the anime, and helps connect all the different talent and studios together with whoever is making the show.

Ani-Gamers: Interestingly, on some projects, you’re more involved in the creative side of it. Justin, you’re credited as original creator of Eden. How did that happen, versus other projects where you’re not as creatively involved?

Leach: It’s really case-by-case. In the case of Eden, I was invited to pitch an original idea. So I did that, and then got the project made. From the beginning it was my original project. And then I hired the team to help make it. In the case of Leviathan, that’s based on an existing property.

In the case of Star Wars: Visions, the Lucasfilm team was leading more on the creative side. It depends on the company and the situation. Each project is different. But yeah, we do pitch our original ideas which we want to develop into shows or features, and then we also adapt existing IP and things like that.

Ani-Gamers: Christophe, how did you get involved in Eden?

Christophe Ferreira: I’m not part of Qubic. I’m a friend of Justin’s. I’ve known him for 20 years and he likes what I do, and the people at Netflix also, like what I do. So when he was looking for mecha designers, he just called me and I was hired to make it.

Katrina Minett: I think there’s a difference for Visions because it was an anthology about highlighting each studio’s individual work. The studio’s creativity was the highlight of that project, whereas for Eden and Leviathan, it wasn’t really focusing on a specific studio. It was more us taking part in the creative side.

Ani-Gamers: Is that something you’re trying to do more of? That seems exciting.

Leach: Yeah, I think it depends on the market demands too. In the case of Hollywood, there’s been a lot of turbulence in the business environment. They’re not taking as much risk as they did before.

Original IPs are very hard to sell. When we were doing Eden there was a hunger for original content, so we utilized that opportunity. But yeah, I would love to. We do have some original ideas that we’re developing that we love to make.

Ani-Gamers: Between all of you, you have like a really diverse set of experiences across different countries and cultures of making animation. How would you compare the creative approach that you’ve seen from Hollywood producers versus Japanese anime versus French animation?

Ferreira: That’s quite a big question. I can’t talk from the producer point of view because I never produced anything in France. I can talk as an artist as an animator and yeah, that’s quite different.

It will be too long to go into details, but basically, in France, until recently at least, they used to think like the Americans in terms of who does what in a project. The separation of tasks.

Let’s take a feature-length movie. In a Disney movie, you have one supervising animator for each character, right? Then you have animators for each character. Sometimes they can switch and do another character, but basically they stick to one. And if you have two characters interacting then two supervising animators will work on that.

But not only that; the layout is done by someone else. All the effects, like if there is water or anything, will be done by someone else. So it’s a lot of people. It’s like constructing a car, a lot of people will have something to do for one cut. (Editor’s Note — Here Christophe uses the common Japanese term “cut” to refer to a shot in animation, roughly equivalent to a single camera shot in live-action film, and distinct from the English use of “cut” for transitions between shots.)

In Japan it’s not like that. In Japan one guy is in charge. One animator is in charge of one sequence. Let’s say it’s 10 cuts, and he will draw everything on it from the background to all the character interactions, the effects. Everything. The shadows too.

In Disney, you have people doing the shadows, different people from the animator. It’s a really strange way of thinking of it. But yeah, basically I learned the Disney way at the Goeblins school, but really I was interested in the Japanese way of doing it.

That’s why I went to Japan and I started the hard way to do the layout and everything. So for me as an artist, that’s the main difference and also the motivation. Because the projects are more interesting for me in Japan.

Ani-Gamers: You were saying the French production methods have started moving toward the Japanese style?

Ferreira: Yeah. Because obviously a lot of people like me were influenced by Japanese animation. And they are starting to produce stuff, and some people came to Japan and went back to France, and they are emulating the Japanese way. Of course, I, when I was younger, when I started working, we didn’t have access to the Japanese method.

We didn’t really know what was going on in the studio, but nowadays, yeah, almost everyone knows how it is done. They see the good points and bad points. So I think in France it’s more an in between thing, like some production are almost like a Japanese production and some are more in between [the American and Japanese style].

Leach: I think one difference between Japan and the West, or at least American production, is specialization versus generalization. So [in Japan] one person wears a lot of hats. Whereas, in an American production, we have one person who just does the hair or the cloth simulation. That’s from a production standpoint.

One difference I noticed from a producing standpoint is that the systems are very different. In Hollywood it’s very producer-driven. They’re usually the ones giving the creative notes. There is a director that is directing but they always have to answer to those notes and if they don’t answer those notes then they might get fired.

In Japan, it’s a more of an auteur system where the director almost has the final say. Everyone gives comments, but the director considers everyone’s feedback and makes the decision. So that’s one difference that I’ve seen. And there are also just different approaches to things like storyboards. The director storyboards the whole episode and no one gives them any comments about what they should change.

But in American studios like Pixar, there’s a group of storyboard artists. They draw and put it up on the wall. They talk about it like, “I don’t think that’s working,” “let’s change that,” “let’s throw it away,” “OK is this working better?” It’s very different.

There are definitely cultural things as well. Japan tends to be more pre-planning-oriented, more about committing to decisions. Whereas on the American side, it’s more like “let’s try this” in the moment. It’s more iterative. “Let’s try this.” “Does it work now?” “Let’s throw it out.” “How about this?” “Let’s change this.” There’s a lot of fluidity, whereas in Japan there’s lots of committing to the decision and executing that, and there’s a lot more careful thought put into it before making the decision. I feel like sometimes on the American side there’s less thought in the beginning. It’s more in the moment, they’re discovering stuff.

Ferreira: And it’s also partly because Americans have the money to do it. Imagine if they didn’t have the money. They would not spend that much time.

Ani-Gamers: That’s true. It reminds me of the stories that came out of the Spider-Verse production.

Ferreira: In Japan, especially for, TV series, basically, you don’t have time or money (which are the same thing) to explore different designs. Usually they’ll use the first design that comes up, and if you do two designs then the second one will be used later on for something else. They don’t have the budget.

Leach: Another example: they do the rough pass and you’re like okay it looks good. Then they do like a more refined pass. And then they do the final pass and you’re like, oh, I noticed this thing that maybe we should change now that I see it’s all there. And it’s like “no, you can’t do that.” You have to go all the way back to the beginning start over. That’s a big no in Japan. But that “no” happens all the time in America.

Minett: My experience is also that there’s a very big difference in flexibility. The first production I worked on was actually a hybrid American-Japanese production, and there were so many misunderstandings that we had to get through. What people’s roles were, what happened at which stage of the process.

So we ended up having to do a class on the differences between the Japanese and American [process]. When do we do this? How many designs are needed? There are a lot more items designed in an American production than in a Japanese production, where it’s left more to the individual artists to fill in the gaps.

And so we had a lot more work that we had to do than the Japanese studio was necessarily expecting in the pre-production phase. There are a lot of different expectations there. And similar issues of “oh, can we like change this line color here?” And it’s like “we already drew the line.”

All: (Laugh)

Leach: Yeah, you missed your chance.

Minett: It was a lot of negotiating through that. Like, how can we adapt to make sure that these changes don’t become an issue? What can we pre-plan, what can the Japanese be more flexible on?

Justin: You basically have to say “we will allow for a specific number of retakes.” It has to be part of the initial plan. Maybe that will be OK, but still there are impacts of changing after work is done.

Ani-Gamers: Christophe, I love that in your panel you shouted out legendary animator Yasuo Otsuka and how you were inspired by him to move to Japan. What was it like learning from Mr. Otsuka?

Ferreira: First of all, he’s a strange character. When he came to France, we had sort of a workshop. During one week, each day we went to a room and he would explain stuff to us and then give us an exercise on how to do it. Really basic stuff, right? Because he just wanted to show us the difference in terms of [Japanese] animation.

He was a really old man. I don’t remember how old, maybe 70 at the time. 2001? Late 60s or early 70s. But he was the guy, Yasuo Otsuka, he was so full of life, like he was in love with animation.

I remember him drawing and saying stuff like, “nowadays? They don’t like movement in animation. They add a lot of detail on on the hair, a lot of stuff,” and he was drawing some kawaii stuff, modern stuff. “No, I don’t like that. I want simple stuff that you can move. You can use it to express movement, because animation is movement.” Things like that. He was a very kind old guy.

And when I got back to Japan and I had the chance to work at his studio, he was always behind us. Always walking around the studio with a big can of Coke. He just loved it. And he would come to us and talk to us. “Are you okay?” And he’d explain stuff to us.

I remember one thing. I’m not proud of it but, you know, in a sense I am proud of it. I had a three-month internship ending with drawing a storyboard. I drew a storyboard for a fake project and I left it on my desk. I was at home at one point working on my in-betweens, and I got a call from Otsuka saying, “can you come to the studio? I showed your storyboard to Miyazaki and I want to talk to you.” I was like, “what? Why?” I went there and he told me what Miyazaki-san felt about it. It wasn’t good of course. But he gave me some feedback. I won’t say what it was, but it was very interesting. That was the kind of guy that Otsuka-san was. Really friendly and very simple.

Ani-Gamers: Thank you, that’s such a great story.