Henry Thurlow – an American animator in Japan

Last year I had the opportunity to watch the presentations of the animator, Henry Thurlow, at the Iberanime an anime/manga and Japanese culture event in Lisbon / Portugal, between Q & A’s and demo sessions, I was able to know his journey from his early adolescence days till this days in his still very promising career, plus a huge “input” on the “real” state of the industry and how some things work, so nothing better than me telling about his journey, projects and ambitions in the form of an article biographical but also a bit illustrative in relation to the anime industry.

Henry Thurlow is an American animator in Japan who has participated in animes such as Naruto Shippūden / The Last, Tokyo Ghoul (both seasons) and also the latest Tokyo Ghoul: Re, Gintama, Overlord II, and more, previously worked on American animations like Superjail!, Deep Space 69 and music videos like “Your Love Is My Drug” by Ke$ha and “Kids” by MGMT.

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The Beginning

Like most children in the US at the time, Henry grew up watching cartoons on television. At the age of 12, Henry had his first experience of a more mature animation with obscurity and violence, HBO’s Spawn. He then discovered the anime section of a video store where he started seeing series and OVA’s the likes of Genocyber, Yoma, Ninja Scroll, Akira, and Demon City Shinjuku. There were many scenes of violence and torture in these series which made him like this kind of animation from especially in the ’90s.

A Promising Start

After studying and graduating in drawing and animation at the Pratt Institute and being an “A’s” student, Henry soon began working in the USA animation industry in cartoons such as Superjail! from Adult Swim and in some other animation projects like Powerpuff Girls and Star Wars: The Clone Wars from Cartoon Network.

But…

However, seeing the examples of 2 of his colleagues who were renowned animators of Cartoon Network and yet the pinnacle of their work was to make cartoons mainly for children and a few more projects here and there, Henry thought well in his career and then decided that what he really wanted was to do Japanese-style animation, the so-called “anime”.

After having the opportunity to have contact with Hideyuki Kikuchi (Vampire Hunter D, Darkside Blues, and Wicked City) at a convention in the USA through his translator he receive some really good and realistic insight into the current anime industry and how he could adapt his American style draws on what is used in Japan, and then he sent his portfolio to various artists.

Henry had the talent, although his style was not acceptable to the design criteria in Japan, so Henry whenever he could send his designs to various artists, most were told that wasn’t enough, but each set of ½ drawings was acceptable according to them. After a while Henry ended up having a good set of “acceptable” drawings where he could include in his portfolio, that way was definitely more “appealing” to the taste of Japanese animation studios.

The chance

Meanwhile, through one of his friends, he got the information that he could go to Japan, which is really a first good step for those who wanted to become animators of anime, through the JET project that gives the opportunity to those who master the English language or have had their mother tongue to teach it in Japan for a certain period of time.

Then without great faith in it, he decided to apply for a chance to teach English in Japan. Surprisingly for him, he continued on receiving emails in which he was notified that he had moved on to the next stage of qualification, until one day he received a notification, which said that they were already in the last vacancies, and if he really wanted to go to Japan he had to decide until next month. Since at the time Henry worked mainly as a freelancer, with nothing who hold him back, he didn’t think twice and thus began his long journey of almost 10 years now, in Japan.

 

Finally in Japan

His first 2 years in Japan were spent in Wakayama prefecture, in the countryside, which unlike Tokyo, Yokohama, and Osaka metropolis, Wakayama was a land in the middle of “nothing” with nothing less than rice fields all over. What Henry himself referred was a great help for his learning of Japanese, because, unlike Tokyo, for example, where several people have at least a basic knowledge of English, in Wakayama, practically nobody spoke other than Japanese. So, from there, Henry was learning Japanese and emerging in Japanese culture. After these 2 years finally arrived the time to finally start looking for work at the animation studios.

 

The complicated start

As he himself said, the first interview was a real disaster, he thinking that with his Japanese already reasonable to have a decent interview and his skills acquired after working professionally in the US animation would be enough to then achieve his much-desired job, but he was completely wrong, the style he then used in his previous work was neither near nor far from the Japanese animation style minimally acceptable to the studios.

And then followed a sequence of failed interviews, he applied for several studios and was always rejected, however among all these interviews he was learning and studying the style of design that the studios accepted. He refreshed and updated his resume several times with the new developments in his design style.

After a while a studio finally believed that his skills and style of drawing would be enough to work for them, also very important for those who want to work in Japan, his visa was valid, but he still had to perfect his techniques. So. in his first week of work on the studio Nakamura Pro, he only did one thing, that was drawing straight lines on a blank piece of paper, he drew … he drew and drew until his lines finally met the criteria of the studio.

Some of his work on Nakamura Pro, where he, unfortunately, was rarely credited:

The start of the dream

And like that his career as an animator of anime started at the studio Nakamura Pro, firstly in the role of an in-betweener (動画 douga).

Finally, his big entrance into the anime industry had been completed and he finally had the opportunity to do what he likes the most, but not everything is a fairy tale, especially when we talk about the anime industry. There was a big issue that was the conditions under which he worked, after 8 months of working 12 hours a day doing 10-12 drawings receiving only $ 1 for each and rarely being credited for his work, Henry decided to say “enough” and took the initiative to look for another studio where he could find better conditions.

Now you must be asking, why someone who could comfortably live in their country working with companies such as the cartoon network and adult swim, plus having more time to enjoy themselves and having tons of free time, was so determined to stay in an industry that most of the time forces you to work for long hours under, in some cases, inhuman conditions with a salary that hardly pays the bills if it were not for the projects he still had from his native country.

His response was very simple, if you aren’t willing to sacrifice yourself and you even think about giving up on your dreams, then you should stop right away. (Henry even told a story from when he had to be hospitalized for the great wear and tear to which he was subjected). But giving up never crossed his mind, continuing to fight for his dream, he still was at the beginning.

As Henry pointed out from the moment one enters the industry, there is no such thing as “there’s no job”, since once inside the industry there are always jobs being offered mostly for in-betweeners like him at the time.

It was then he followed his path to the famous studio Pierrot where he worked on series such as Tokyo Ghoul, Naruto Shippūden, and many others as an in-betweener then he took another big step in his career when he began working as a key-animator (原 画 genga) at Bang Bang Animation studio (created by the veteran Shiro Kudaka) where he worked on animes like Gintama and Code Geass: Akito the Exiled (OAV).

But his ambition did not stop there, in 2016 he and his friend Arthell Isom (background artist who worked on animes like Blood-C, Black Butler, and more) decided together to create an American animation studio located in Japan called D ‘ART Shtajio with the mission to make Japanese animation, and simultaneously accepting projects from all over the world.

After in-betweener and key-animator what was the next big step in Henry’s?

The next step of Henry’s career would naturally be direction (監督 kantoku), which he had the opportunity to do so in some projects he already directed with his friend and also the creator of the studio D’ART Shtajio Arthell Isom, projects such as Shojo in Piero short and Indigo Ignited a pilot episode mainly focused to the western public, Henry Thurlow directed the short, while Arthell Isom was in charge of the backgrounds as art director, Yoshiharu Ashino (D.Gray-man Hallow, Azuki-chan) served as a storyboarder, Asuka Tsubuki (Gugure ! Kokkuri-san) was the animation director, Rejean Dubois was the character designer and David Butler was the music director.

But again, his ambition doesn’t stop there, asked about what his next step would be, Henry said that he still has numerous steps to achieve his career and that he was only at the beginning of it. Finally, he manifested his wish that he has with studio D’ART Shtajio, which is to create a full anime series that could be broadcast on TV’s and streaming services.

Thank you to the “IberAnime” convention 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal for having me out as a guest. It was a great experience, and I was really impressed with a lot of questions some young animators in the audience had. pic.twitter.com/PgPVglgPEM

— Henry Thurlow (@henry_thurlow) 28 de maio de 2018

Henry Thurlow often posts updates on his latest projects such as Tokyo Ghoul: re, Nanatsu in Taizai: Imashime at Fukkatsu, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 5: Golden Wind, One Piece on his Tumblr and Twitter.