One of the industries that has benefited from the rich pool of creative workers in the country is the animation industry. According to Marlyn Montano, managing director of Holy Cow! Animation, the Philippines has been known internationally as a haven for good creative animators and artists since the latter part of the 1980s when Burbank and Hanna Barbera set up affiliate studios in the country. Today, major industry players include TOEI Animation Phils., Philippine Animation Studio Inc., Fil Cartoons, Toon City, Top Draw Animation, and Top Peg Animation.

“In 1983, Burbank set up an office here and brought in their people to train Filipino artists,” Montano said. “After five years, they turned over the technology to the Filipinos.” Hanna Barbera set up shop five years later and also trained local artists. In 1986, TOEI Animation – a 100% Japanese-owned company credited for producing the majority of Anime series being aired nationwide, established its first studio in the Philippines.

In fact, according to TOEI Animation general manager Nestor Palabrica — who is also the president of the Animation Council of the Philippines — TOEI is the oldest existing animation studio in the country. TOEI has trained a lot of artists to do the Japanese way of animation. Among the shows they have done are Dragon Ball Z, Transformers, G. I. Joe, and Sailormoon. “The bulk of the animation of these anime shows are done here in the Philippines,” Palabrica said. “In fact, when we started back in 1986, nobody knew about anime and it was only during the last few years that interest was generated again in the field.”

Human creativity meets information technology to create an animation industry

In 1999, Holy Cow! Animation was born. Their clients included big advertising agencies like McCann Erickson. Holy Cow concentrates mostly on 2D animation and a little 3D. The software they use include Maya, Softimage, and Light Wave. Recently, the company landed a contract to do a 10-episode animated series for a Middle Eastern client. They are now in the process of coming up with their own animated series.

Like most businesses, Holy Cow was deeply affected by the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. Because of this, Montano sees the animation market shifting from the US to Europe. She adds that she sees the animation industry adopting a mixture of 2D and 3D.

But while the Philippines continues to support projects from other parts in the world, it is also imperative that Filipino artists develop their own unique characters and series, explains Montano. Palabrica shares Montano’s views adding that TOEI’s Japanese principal had started to encourage them to come up with their own animation series.

According to Palabrica, more and more foreign companies are employing artists from Vietnam, India, and China to do their work because they are cheaper and more technologically-advanced than artists in the Philippines. Therefore, the challenge now is for local talents to produce original Filipino storyboards in order to place the industry at a more advantagous position than its Asian neighbors. However, original works call for bigger investments. As Palabrica notes, “We are definitely capable of producing original works but who will finance it? It is more expensive to produce an animated series than a full length movie.” When the right financier comes around, Palabrica said, Filipino artists will definitely be ready.