Amin Abbas

Beast, a freelance animator working remotely for some of the biggest studios in Japan, has worked on nearly 40 anime projects.

About the establishment of his career as an animator, Beast said: “I started doing animation in 2014, in college. Professionally more or less from 2017 and anime around 2 years ago.”

Beast co-directed a music video for a local musician in 2017 as part of a college project, and his first paid animation job was as an animation supervisor for a local animated feature. Following this, he freelanced until he landed his first anime job on Black Clover #145.

“Animation as being understood as a form of cinema, is fascinating to me, as an art so complex that you need hundreds of people around the world working together to make it happen. Also, the technical aspects of sitting there and creating a scene out of thin air amaze me every time. It has its own version of time and space, it’s very poetic in a sense. You never stop learning,” he told Arab News Japan.

About the challenges that he faced during his projects, Beast said refining his skills and time management were his biggest challenges, but he learned how to delegate tasks more. 

Beast outlined how “Japanese animation is very focused on its aesthetics, making characters look cool or pretty. Also, they are more daring when it comes to cinematography, like being creative with their camera movements and angles, transitions, etc… not to mention their action sequences.”

Regarding his upcoming projects, Beast shared how he has taken on some fun projects that will require him to step up his “game when it comes to action animation,” and he has also started working as an Animation Director (Sakuga Kantoku) for a studio.

About his recommendations for those who wants to be an animation artist or working in Japan for animation projects, Beast said: “Study the very basics for animation and drawing (not everything is fancy action cuts), and be prepared to work a lot and better yourself with every new challenge.”

In an exclusive interview with Arab News Japan, Beast shared how his most notable memories of anime go back to Saint Seiya, Dragon Ball and My Neighbour Totoro. His favorites include the works of Hideaki Anno, for it’s incomparable direction. Also manga like Hellsing, Rozen Maiden, Baki and the works of Hitoshi Tomizawa.

About his visit to Japan, Beast said: “I haven’t been there yet! I was planning on attending the opening of the Summer Olympics this year, but the pandemic busted my plans. I hope to be able to visit soon. I want to visit Tokyo and some nice beaches. Also, I have several friends over there I would like to meet.”

The animator admires various elements of Japanese culture including how polite and responsible the people are, which he aims to emulate.