If Anime is a Storytelling Language, Can Anyone Learn to Speak it?

An image from the Toei Animation film Monkey Quest shows the Monkey King in fighting pose with a staff. © TOEI 2026

Producer Yoshi Ikezawa, head of co-production at Toei, told #Variety magazine in Cannes that a finished Toei co-production may not always wear its Japanese origins visibly — but the underlying grammar remains distinctly anime. “We believe that the anime aesthetic and the storytelling language of anime are already inherently Japanese.” When the mighty Toei Animation, […]