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ufotable - TV Tropes

  • ️Mon Apr 29 2013

ufotable (Creator)

ufotable is a Japanese animation studio established in 2000 by Hikaru Kondou, a former employee from TMS Entertainment and its subsidiary Telecom. The studio was relatively obscure due to the nature of their work until 2007, when their big break came through in the form of the popular anime adaptation of The Garden of Sinners. Of particular note is their Digital Team led by Yuichi Terao, which enabled the studio to redefine the industry standard for integrating digital effects into 2D animation with the spectacular visuals of Fate/Zero in 2011. Fate/stay night [Unlimited Blade Works], released in 2014, helped to solidify their dominance in this field.

Contrary to popular belief, the quality of their shows comes not from having vastly higher budgets than their competitors, but rather because of their unusual degree of production independence. Ufotable's roughly 90 animation staff are spread over two buildings and divided into about eight divisions. While most anime studios try to keep costs low and productivity high by relying heavily on freelancers and taking on a large number of simultaneous projects, ufotable is one of a handful of studios (famously including Kyoto Animation) which are organized to do as much work as possible in-house, while concentrating their time and energy on only a few projects at a time. The result of this in-house culture is not only high production quality, but also a distinct style to their shows that remains consistent even as it improves over time.

Sadly not a Table made out of a UFO, though the studio's namesake is a table that looks like a UFO that the founders wanted (which they now have and bring around to conventions).

In 2019, the studio came under fire for tax evasion and money laundering to the tune of 400 million Yen.

The Canipa Effect has produced an Anime Studio Spotlight about ufotable. Watch it here.

Anime created by ufotable:

Other Anime worked on by ufotable:

They also created the animated openings for Fate/stay night Realta Nua and Fate/hollow ataraxia for the PS Vita. More credits by the studio can be found on Anime News Network.

Tropes associated with ufotable:

  • 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: Provided this for Sonic X and Gundam SEED. Also present in their other shows, to the point where God Eater is almost nothing but CGI with the odd hand-drawn element at times.
  • All Girls Want Bad Boys: Serial Killer Ryuunosuke from Fate/Zero was quite popular with the female staff members, apparently.
  • Animation Bump: One of the best from the digital era of animation. While not quite having the raw shading goodness of OVA and movies from the late 80s and 90s, ufotable gives it's all in trying to stay on model and being clear-cut while also keeping flashier moments to emphasize major fights and events.
  • Animation Evolution: The Garden of Sinners marks the start of their experiment in combining 2D animation with CGI components, which over time evolved into their Signature Style. Prior to that, the studio primarily produced 2D animation, much like other animation studios back in the day.
  • The Anime of the Game: After "The Garden of Sinners," they primarily focused on creating visual novel openings and cutscenes as well as adapting a few video games into anime.
  • all lowercase letters: Their name is not capitalized.
  • Cash-Cow Franchise: Their Fate Series works and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba are this. The latter is so successful that it's reported to have earned around 900 billion yen in merchandising.
  • Creator's Oddball: Starting around The New '10s note , ufotable mostly created several video game adaptations or openings such as the Nasuverse and tried adapting a few shonen or lighthearted manga series. Gyo stands out as their sole horror manga adaptation.
  • Development Hell: They may only work on a few projects each year, but some of their announced works still fell to this trope. "Girls Work" and the "Katsugeki/Touken Ranbu" movie are the most notable offenders, with the former being announced as far back as June 2008, yet no news has been released after it's announcement or if it was silently canceled. note 
  • The Movie: Aside from their video game adaptations, another thing that sets them apart from other studios is their tendency to release anime movies for their priority franchises rather than anime seasons with the best example being Garden of Sinners, which consists of seven movies and an Original Video Animation.
  • Quality over Quantity: Unlike other studios that release many projects each year, ufotable typically releases only one or two anime shows alongside a few game cutscenes. In exchange, this approach allows them to invest significant time and effort into each production, resulting in their works featuring consistent high-quality animation that feels ahead of its time.
  • Scenery Porn: Nearly all their anime post The Garden of Sinners feature this thanks to using CGI to help animate their backgrounds, which would sometimes make it look too realistic in contrast to characters being drawn in 2D. The Infinity Castle in Demon Slayer is the best example, where castle is animated so differently from the manga for no reason other than to just show off their admittedly impressive visual effects.
  • Troubled Production: ufotable is well known to avoid troubled production in their works with the exception of God Eater, which experienced significant delays that that multiple episodes were delayed by a week, and the last episodes were aired half a year later.