Ganime is a new corporate project to develop the features of selective animation to provide a more flexible category of anime. Ganime was created jointly by Toei Animation and the publisher Gentosha. The overall project is to promote auteurism in animation by encouraging creators to have the freedom to exercise their imagination instead of conforming to the predetermined norms of the anime industry. The Ganime project also intends to liberate the artists’ creativity through collaboration among painters, novelists, musicians and film directors.

“Ga” is written with a character meaning “painting,” in their usage it is not restricted to any particular method but could be oil painting, ink painting, wood block printing, photography or even clay models; “nime” is written with katakana as a shortened form of “anime.” As the project name indicates, Ganime stresses the value of the drawing by the artists, treating them as establishing the core to which words and music are integrated to create a new form of expression.

At time of writing, fourteen Ganime titles have been released since the project was launched at the end of May 2006. Each work exhibits a different drawing technique, visual style and represents various genres. The Ganime Project also aims to incorporate works that employ different materials besides drawn animation. Most works have adapted noted examples of classic and contemporary literature and music to enrich the narrative element.² Ganime tends to be character-based, slower in pace and rendered with less motion than usually found in anime. Ganime has been introduced to the public as “the art of slow animation.”³ The works are being released directly on DVDs without prior showing on television or in theatres. Ganime works vary in length; the shortest being seventeen minutes, and the longest forty minutes, while most are between twenty to thirty minutes.

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