Final Fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano reveals ZAN anime at Anime Expo

Yoshitaka Amano, the legendary artist behind Final Fantasy's iconic visual identity, unveiled ZAN at Anime Expo — a hand-drawn limited anime series adapted from his 2013 Dark Horse Comics artbook. The announcement came alongside the launch of a Los Angeles-based production company, Yoshitaka Amano Inc., built to develop his IP into an international brand.

ZAN is described as a sci-fi action fantasy that crosses time and space, and every frame is hand-drawn on paper before being digitally scanned. The team screened a roughly 90-second pilot film at the panel — one they were still editing the night before — and the staff list reads like a who's-who of classic anime: animation directors Masashi Ikeda (Inuyasha, Gundam Wing) and Toru Yoshida (Armored Trooper VOTOMS, Gundam SEED), principal animator Moriyasu Taniguchi (VOTOMS, Samurai Champloo), writer Yuya Takashima (Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury), and art directors Kunio Ogawara (Mobile Suit Gundam) and Minoru Nishida (Kill Bill). The panel made a point of the team's combined experience — some members are over 80, and the average age clears 60. ZAN is targeting a 2028 or later release, and two additional unannounced animated productions are already in development under the new studio.

Amano got his start at Tatsunoko Production in the late 1960s, where everything was hand-drawn by default. He's best known internationally for his character and creature designs across the Final Fantasy series, but his fine-art career — paintings, artbooks, gallery exhibitions — has run in parallel for decades. ZAN the artbook came out of that side of his work. His concern about the industry's drift away from physical drawing is pointed: he told Kotaku that some animators working today can't draw on a Shikishi board when handed one, because they've become so disconnected from the physical act of making art. For Amano, preserving that connection is the whole point.

The pilot film drew strong reactions at Anime Expo, with attendees responding to its distinctly analog visual texture. With the LA studio now formally established and two more projects in the pipeline, Amano's push to build a scaled international brand around his work looks like it's just getting started.