MANIA. It’s an anagram of ANIMA. A discovery as innocent as that marked the first step toward this year’s theme: MANIA-NI-ANIMA. By definition, mania is an excessively intense enthusiasm. Anima, in Latin, means soul or life and is said to be the origin of the word "animation."

We tirelessly create hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of frames each day, breathing life into pictures and dolls that would never move on their own. An AI capable of producing a moving image in the blink of an eye would be utterly puzzled by what we do. If it were to ask us why, the answer is simple: we are manias of animation. We are not driven by rationality—it's the force of love and pure joy. That is the essence we wanted to convey with the phrase MANIA-NI-ANIMA. It's all we need take on this daunting task, day in and day out.

The middle NI is how we read the katakana "二," which also resembles the equal sign. For us, our MANIA is our ANIMA. The phrase has a nice ring to it, too. So please say it aloud, and we hope it stays with you, as well as our work, because they are nothing short of a true representation of our MANIA and ANIMA.