Definitive Anime Review Issue #1 – Lost on the way to the doctors

Hello everyone and welcome to Definitive Anime Review, the series of articles that finds the truth about the terrifying world of the anime industry. We look at all the silliness, the craziness and everything in between and find out what’s really going on!

In this edition of Definitive Anime Review I have decided to visit a place that I’m sure we’re all familiar with. When we’re feeling a bit poorly and you’re drinking your body weight in lemon and ginger tea (an absolute lifesaver), you might consider going to the local GP if it’s getting a bit bad. The GP, being the workplace of people who have given their life to the medical profession, doctors if you will. Your local GP will have doctors who will try their best to solve all sorts of minor ailments and illnesses. It will have a corner with one of those bead contraptions that you remember fondly playing with when you were a kid. It will also have the most infuriating and frustrating automated telephone service that you have to call up at precisely 8am or you won’t be seen that day. The GP is a wonder of society!

Wait, was I meant to be talking about anime? Well this is actually extremely relevant to the tale I’m about to tell you. You see, there’s a certain person in the anime industry that seems to not know where their doctor is even based, arguing that for some reason they’re based in Japan despite many many people telling him otherwise. That man goes by the name of Jason DeMarco, a television producer who in recent years has gone on to produce several anime titles for the historic animated television block, Toonami.

So what is going on with Jason DeMarco? What has this got to do with anime? Why did I dedicate an entire paragraph to praising and venting my frustrations with the GP? Well, we’ll soon answer all of these questions and many more that you might have.

Who even is Jason DeMarco?

Jason DeMarco, is a guy with a pretty impressive resume of stuff behind him. He’s the one that does that Toonami thing that people like loads in the US. In the UK, Toonami was a TV channel that I watched briefly when I was a kid, it ended up getting shut down in 2007 and it never returned to our shores. I’d say the folks in the US are pretty lucky that their one ended up coming back and is still alive and kicking in 2024. 

Though DeMarco didn’t stop with just being that guy who does the Toonami thing, he also started being a producer of anime too. A very important role in the anime industry in my opinion. I once got told by King Dedede that the producer role was the most important role and I consider his views on the industry to be above anyone else’s. Sure he only produced two anime but his escapades in the industry is still the gold standard in explaining the anime industry to an outsider to this very day. 

Using the power of the アニメスタッフデータベース an empirical fountain of knowledge and power, unknown by 99.9999999999999% of anime fans, I was able to source several anime that DeMarco was producer on. These include being the Executive Producer on Fena: Warrior Princess, an anime that when I watched it, constantly reminded me of Ashita no Nadja. Pirate Nadja featuring ninja friends was not quite as awesome as I had hoped despite the premise. My best advice that I could give someone considering watching it, is to attempt to watch Ashita no Nadja. A show that was already awesome in 2003 and better yet, has 50 episodes so it won’t run out of goodness before you can say “yarr”.

DeMarco is also producer on Lord of the Rings: War of the Rohirrim, a film that is apparently releasing in the cinema this year just in time for Christmas. Not sure why the Rohirrim are having a war but it’s something to do with the Lord of the Rings. Maybe they got a bad deal at the jewellers and are now having a bit of a small disagreement? Heaven knows why the Lord of the Rings knows these people to begin with. I don’t remember that from the 12 hours of my life I’ll never get back from watching the Directors’ Cut of the three films but considering it went on for what seemed like an eternity, I don’t doubt that I probably forgot who they were if they were even in the films.   

There’s Lazurus, a series that’s currently planned for release in 2025 about a bloke called Dr. Skinner who won the Nobel Prize in 2052 for creating a miracle drug called Hapuna. Well I don’t know what’s hapuna with the healthcare system in the 2050s but allowing this guy to create medicine is a recipe for disaster. I’ve seen this guy work as a school principal, he couldn’t possibly be a good doctor! Wait a minute…he’s the villain and he’s actually evil? Well I couldn’t possibly see that coming! Skinner, not content with withholding the Northern Lights in his kitchen, has now decided that he also wants to kill everyone now. He could have done that by burning roasts in people’s houses but I guess in the future, that’s no longer an effective method of committing mass genocide. We’ll have to wait and see and find out what crazy adventures Skinner and the superintendent get up to next year.

Let’s see what else he’s done…he was producer on Ninja Kamui a show directed by the legendary director Seong-Hu Park who as we all know, is most well known for his incredible inbetweening on Onegai My Melody in 2005. Looking at the rest of his resume he was also an animation director on Aikatsu. With those two shows under his belt, you know you’ve got a surefire winner of a director on your show. However, he’s now directing a show about a guy called Joe who gave up his life as a ninja to live the American Dream before being forced to be a ninja again. This has actually happened to me earlier this year after someone took the last packet of Indomie at Tesco and I swore to do ninja stuff to get it back. It didn’t go too well though, I’m pretty bad at climbing things and I’m not very good with heights so I gave up that idea pretty quickly.

He err…also produced Rick and Morty: The Anime! I don’t think I need to elaborate on that one. Yeah, I think we can move on from that.

So from what we know, Jason DeMarco is an accomplished anime producer who knows his stuff. He likes ninjas, pirates, pirate ninjas, cyborgs, cyborg ninjas, pirate cyborgs, pirate cyborg ninjas and might be a fan of Onegai My Melody. What could possibly be the problem with someone who you’d definitely have a good chat with about ninjas and the many directorial talents of Makoto Moriwaki while drinking a pint down the pub? Well he’s got one very big weakness. He’s got an awful sense of direction.

I heard this had something to do with spirals?

You know when you’re really lost, you tend to walk around in circles? Well Mr. DeMarco has a habit of spiraling into a bit of a frenzy, having a quick look through the Internet to see if people are saying mean things about him. Now that I’ve mentioned this, let me take a moment to quickly say something.

Hi Mr. DeMarco, I hope I’m not being too mean about you. I’m just having a bit of a laugh! Hope you’re enjoying the article so far!

Anyway, Jason DeMarco recently made a bold statement on Twitter and many people thought he made himself look like a bit of a wally. Now, I think that those people might be jumping the gun a little bit here. Jason DeMarco has been in the industry for decades and has produced at least ten anime. I haven’t even produced one anime in my lifetime so far!

Jason DeMarco declared on Twitter that most Japanese animation is not done in Korea to which a brave soul responded saying that Japanese studios have been outsourcing animation to other countries for years. DeMarco, with his unbridled wisdom and intellect, savaged the person by repeating his claim that Korea does not handle any animation for anime and that he knows this because he’s produced 15 anime series and asked how many have they produced.

Well, Mr. DeMarco. As I said earlier. I have not produced any anime but I am the owner of an epic anime journalism website now. Which means I can use my Journalism Powers™ in order to counter this claim. I don’t know if you have done a journalism before but I have been doing it for years now! I can defeat your claim without breaking a sweat! Just watch!

The Disappearance of Doctor Movie.

So my plan to taking down Mr. DeMarco’s frankly silly claim is simply by going through all the anime productions that he’s ever worked on and where I can source the credits, I’ll see how many series have any involvement from South Korea. We of course know that the world of anime is not just localised in Japan, especially these days, but I’m giving Mr. DeMarco a bit of a fighting chance here. I’m sure you can all admire my sportsmanship I’m showing here.

So I’ve gone on Anime News Network’s wiki (incredible that it’s somehow the best source for this topic) and have obtained a list of all DeMarco’s credits. Let’s see just how well DeMarco’s claim stacks up.

The Big O II (THE ビッグオー second season)

So the first anime that we’re looking at is The Big O II where DeMarco was an Executive Producer. Now after going through the episodes, it didn’t take me long to find out that despite being an Executive Producer on this series, Jason DeMarco’s claim doesn’t really stand up to much scrutiny. On the third episode of the season (Ep.16), a background artist by the name of Ji-Won Gong 공지원 appeared. Gong was working at T2 Studio (an admittedly Japanese studio) at the time of the series and seems to have been active in the industry between 2002 to 2007 where he moved to South Korea to work at GK Entertainment before credits seemingly run dry for him.

Though just a few episodes later, disaster for DeMarco. A Korean subcontracting studio appears credited for Key Animation and Inbetweening. Sonsan Kikaku or Sungsan Production 星山企画 성산 is a Korean subcontracting studio that has been active since at least the early 1990s on anime productions and is still working on anime to this very day with credits on at least two shows in 2024. They’re not even a studio that has been working on and off in the industry, they’re regular participants and have been for over 25 years now!

Blade Runner: Black Lotus

Blade Runner: Black Lotus is a more recent production, airing in 2022 as a collaboration between Crunchyroll and Adult Swim. Once again DeMarco was Executive Producer on this. Unlike The Big O, this has no entry on the アニメスタッフデータベース which means we have to rely on English language sources, which will have to do. AniDB has the most comprehensive crediting for this one, but apart from Sae Whan Song a former Crunchyroll executive who now works for Viz Media who was Executive Producer, I couldn’t find anything. Nobody could be bothered to write up the credits for this anime anywhere. All hope was lost until I decided to just search it on Google and lo and behold a saviour emerged.

Yes, it was on Channel 4! I then went through the credits manually and spotted on Ep.1 that Studio Join did Character Rigging on the show. Studio Join is a studio run by Jaechul Bae since 2016 who has previously worked at Toei Animation and Polygon Pictures. His Join Tool software is used at multiple studios including Marza Animation Planet. While he is South Korean, his studio is actually based in Shibuya and therefore doesn’t fully pass the test. I’m going to chalk this one up to DeMarco. 

FLCL Alternative Progressive Grunge Shoegaze

This whole section is going to be covering all four of the FLCL sequels and whether any of those have any Korean involvement and especially any Korean subcontracting studio involvement. Will DeMarco look like a fooly by the end of the next paragraph? Let’s find out.

First up we have FLCL Alternative which has Mechanical Animation from Kiyotaka Oshiyama! Thought I’d mention that even though it’s not really why I’m looking at the credits. From what I could see, it didn’t seem to have any South Korean staff or outsourcing. However, from here, that’s where DeMarco’s claim starts to crumble. FLCL Progressive has Studio NOVA, a South Korean subcontracting studio founded in September 2008 dealing with background art and has worked on several anime in their time. CEO Seung Chan Kang has also worked under several other studios including DR Movie and Tezuka Pro but his studio is definitely 100% based in Seoul, South Korea. FLCL Grunge was produced at MontBlanc Pictures, a 3DCG studio in Japan along with Teapot Studio which is based in Thailand. Neither of those are based in South Korea. FLCL Shoegaze is the last one and that one seems to have a lot of outsourced animation in China rather than South Korea with plenty of Japanese studios mixed in too. 

Darn, I thought DeMarco would end up failing a lot more there. Nevertheless his claim failed here too as Progressive had involvement from Studio NOVA. You can’t say that no Japanese animation is done in Korea if there’s even a smidgen of involvement from a Korean subcontractor!

Housing Complex C

Don’t think I’ve actually heard of this show before looking at it. Apparently the main character lives in a housing development that’s evil. Definitely the sort of relatable content that people are asking for these days so it’s no wonder it got made. Anyway, this one, like FLCL Shoegaze, is a mix of Chinese and Japanese studios and there’s no South Korean involvement from what I could see.

IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix (2005)

This is a pretty old show and one that looks pretty cool from the pictures, a futuristic racing anime? Sign me right up! Anyway, this show is produced at Production I.G and aired all the way back in 2005. So maybe Mr. DeMarco doesn’t remember this one but unfortunately this series is another one where there’s South Korean subcontracting. Heck, this show has probably the most infamous South Korean subcontracting studio of them all, DR MOVIE, who appear on Ep.11 handling some Key Animation. 

DR MOVIE was established in Seoul in 1990 by Jeong Jeong-gyun and to this day he is still the CEO of the company. DR MOVIE is probably one of the most prolific subcontracting studios in anime. In 1991, they got into a nice cosy relationship with Madhouse and over time, got even closer to them. Though not literally, they’re based in two different countries.

Chances are, you have looked at the credits of an anime and you’ve seen their name in big capital letters and laughed because you thought a guy called Doctor Movie worked on anime. I mean, that’s what I always thought. Don’t tell me I was alone on that one! Though it actually doesn’t mean doctor at all, it means flame.

DR Movie are one of the largest South Korean animation studios, with over 400 employees at the last count. It’s no wonder they’re always popping up in your favourite shows!

I can imagine Mr. DeMarco having forgotten that DR MOVIE showed up for an episode of this show he produced almost 20 years ago. He doesn’t even mention it on his BlueSky bio, shame because it seems like a pretty fun show!

The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim

This isn’t out for another two months but call me when the credits come out and DR MOVIE appears.

Richard and Mortimer: The Anime

Richard and Mortimer: The Anime was Jason DeMarco’s way of catering to a British audience. We love Richard and Mortimer here and we especially love Takashi Sano’s other directorial work, Tower of God. Did you know that series was created in South Korea? I digress, let’s talk about Richard and Mortimer. This series was produced at Telecom and had heavy involvement from another South East Asian country that hasn’t been mentioned yet, Malaysia! OLM Asia contributed to Key Animation on Ep.3 of the show and while it wasn’t gross outsourced to them, quite a lot of the animation was done by them.

But despite Malaysian animation talent lending their might, this is yet another anime where Mr. DeMarco’s claim fails. You see it’s because of Orange Animation.

No, not the 3DCG studio. Not the French one. Not the Polish one I just found out about that’s worked on The Garfield Show. The other Orange Animation, the South Korean one!

Orange Animation 오렌지애니메이션 was founded by Baek Jong-ryong in 1996, they’ve worked on many different shows notably Doraemon, Detective Conan and Lupin III handling Key Animation, Inbetweens, Finishing and Paint. I kinda expected Mr. DeMarco to have recognised this one, especially since this show only aired a few months ago but maybe he got the Orange studios mixed up? I mean, this one handles 2D animation and the other one only does CG but they have virtually identical names! Anyone can make that mistake right?

Suicide Squad ISEKAI

Not sure why they had to capitalise ISEKAI in the title but honestly, you do you Mr DeMarco. This is an anime about Suicide Squad, the crazy lot from Gotham City. Also that rapping Vtuber did some music for this. Credits for this show a lot of subcontracting happening across Japan and China but none in South Korea from the looks of it though unlike the other anime in this article so far, this had plenty of those lovely foreign animators that you and I might be friends with working on this. This show truly is a worldwide project!

Fena: Pirate Princess

We’ve finally made it to the one DeMarco produced anime that I’ve actually sat down and watched…a few episodes of! Got to say, the English language crediting for this is probably the worst of anything I’ve seen so far. Unlike beloved anime Ashita no Nadja which has got complete credits in English! Kazuto Nakazawa had come a long way since he was Character Designer on Nadja, now he’s a Series Director and he managed to get Americans to produce his show which is just Nadja but with pirates and ninjas. A very cunning plan!

So for this one I’ve had to use Keyframe Staff Lists to translate the more extensive staff listings on アニメスタッフデータベース rather than using any incomplete English sources and I got the website to translate everything, all twelve episodes have now got completely translated credits because of this article! Anyway, I think DeMarco has got it on this series. Though there was a South Korean group of background artists working at Art Team Convoy for a few episodes and Si-Eun Lee was a regular on the show, contributing 14 times with 2nd KA and douga so he hasn’t entirely won emphatically with his claim on Fena.

Ninja Kamui

Another super recent DeMarco produced anime, this one was released in 2024 so considering he made his claim that South Korean studios don’t work on anime this August, you’d think he’d remember that this particular show actually has the most South Korean subcontractors on any show I’ve looked at thus far. 

Perhaps Mr. DeMarco had a nasty fall while he was doing his shopping at Trader Joes (I wish we had that here in the UK too) and forgot that he got several South Korean studios working on the show but this was this year! 

Anyway, let’s go through it all shall we? 

So firstly, let’s address the elephant in the room. Seong-Hu Park is the director of this show and while he currently resides in Japan, he’s South Korean. He’s the literal Series Director. The top dog. The head honcho. The boss. The kingpin. The don. Though perhaps DeMarco will say that because he lives in Japan it doesn’t count. Well, let’s talk about the subcontracting studios.

Our good friends at DR MOVIE return after a very long absence and boy do they deliver on this show. DR MOVIE worked on the OP/ED and ten episodes. Contributing to 2nd KA, douga, compositing and Scan and Paint. I’m honestly not sure how you exactly miss that one of the largest South Korean animation studios worked extensively on your show that you just produced but he also missed out on all the others.

We also got our first Filipino studio in World Anime Networks, a studio based in Baguio City. They’ve been around since at least 2018 and have contributed to a fair few anime in their time. Nice to see another country represented in our search so far!

Studio Blue or ST. BLUE is up next and they have been around since 2006 rising up from the ashes of Ani Village another Korean subcontracting studio. You’ve definitely seen them if you’ve watched any anime from Kyoto Animation and they pop up all over the place. They’re based in Seoul, South Korea and have been ever since their foundation.

Mirinae Animation is a relatively new studio, having only started working on shows in the last couple of years and had some of their animators contribute 2nd KA on Ninja Kamui. They’re also based in Seoul.

There’s so many South Korean staff who worked on Ninja Kamui that Mr. DeMarco’s claim that no Japanese animation is produced in South Korea packed its bags on a holiday to Seoul itself. That’s how laughably wrong it is.

Shenmue The Animation

Even though Mr DeMarco’s claim of silliness has already gone up in smoke for the last show we looked at, we might as well look at Shenmue The Animation too. Did you know that my dad has forklift truck certification and drove one for almost 20 years? Well it’s time for me to drive a metaphorical forklift truck through the credits of this anime and find out if DeMarco is wrong here too. 

Firstly, let’s highlight NAM HAI, a Vietnamese subcontracting studio that appeared on Shenmue. Now Vietnamese staff have actually been appearing throughout this list and contributed a lot on Blade Runner: Black Lotus too. NAM HAI are a background art studio based in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and have contributed to many anime since their start in 2011.

Also our friends at Orange Animation return, this time contributing to douga for 9 episodes of the show. So yeah, DeMarco wrong again here too.

Uzumaki

So this is the series that DeMarco produced that is currently airing right now. Not even one month after he opened his gob and said that no anime is animated in Korea. I think I’ll let the screencap below showing the animation credits for Ep.1 speak for itself.

Yeah…

This article was really long. Can I get my money back? 

In conclusion, Jason DeMarco, despite being an accomplished anime director and voice of a hot dog salesman actually doesn’t know as much about anime compared to the owner of a journalism. Fancy that? Actually, people don’t even need to go to all the effort I did to research this either. Just look at the credits of Uzumaki right now and you’ll see South Korean staff and studios appear right in front of your face.

But hopefully you enjoyed my spiraling descent into madness looking at this bloke’s silly claim. If you have any more journalisms you’d like me to do for Definitive Anime Review do let me know on BlueSky or Discord! Goodbye for now!