AnimeShorts

Anime Shorts

Mini anime maker

A mini anime is a show that fits in your pocket: episodes around a minute long, a cast of a few characters you made yourself, and a story that moves forward one tiny episode at a time. This is the place to make one.

Takes are priced per second and shown before you render. Drafts cost 2 credits, stitching 2.

Start the studio with this premise

A tiny night-market stall run by a cook who pays his debts in melon soda, and the regulars who keep coming back.

Suggested show title: Benji Serves Everyone

Sample episodes

Rendered from the preset cast with the prompts under each frame. Tap a frame to play.

Episode 1: The Rooftop Promise

Sky Over Kasumi Hill

A college rooftop at golden hour, chain-link fence, water tank, orange clouds. Riku Hanamori, 19, navy hair and a red headband, leans on the fence. Noa Shirakaze, 20, silver bob and frameless glasses, stops beside him without looking at him. Riku: "If we win the relay, you have to come to the festival." Noa, deadpan: "If you win." A breeze lifts the petals; she almost smiles.

Episode 6: Two Umbrellas

Sky Over Kasumi Hill

A brightly lit convenience store at 2am, rain on the glass doors. Taro Umezaki, 21, broad-shouldered with a tiny eyebrow scar, holds a clear umbrella with one bent rib. Noa Shirakaze, 20, silver bob, holds a bento box with a folded note under the chopsticks. Taro, gentle: "You left this on the roof." Noa, deadpan: "I left it for you." A long beat; the automatic door chimes.

Episode 4: Baton

Sky Over Kasumi Hill

A concrete stadium tunnel opening onto a floodlit track. Yuzu Amanogawa, 19, orange twin-tails and a track windbreaker, grips an orange relay baton. Jun Takeshita, 20, slick black hair and a silver earring, smirks from the other lane. Jun: "Try to keep up." Yuzu, hot-blooded: "Try to keep breathing!" Impact frame as the starting gun fires; speed lines down the tunnel.

Episode 2: Melon Float

Benji Serves Everyone

A night market lane strung with red lanterns, steaming stalls. Benji Okonkwo, early 20s, round gold glasses and a chef bandana, slides a tall green melon soda float across the counter. Sachi Morihara, 23, pastel-pink side ponytail and star hair clips, stares at it. Benji, laughing: "On the house, if you sing the jingle." Sachi, stage bright: "Which jingle?" He points at the sign; she gasps.

A show, not a clip

The unit of work here is the show. You give it a title and a premise, attach the characters who will recur, and pick a home set that episodes default to. Everything you make afterwards hangs off that show: episodes are numbered, takes are filed under their episode, and the finished cuts line up on a public page with the show's title at the top. Thirty episodes fit in one show, which is enough for a whole season of a mini series with room for a second.

Because the cast is saved as reference sheets, a character introduced in episode two still looks like herself in episode twenty. That is what makes the series feel like a series instead of a folder of unrelated videos.

Making the first episode

Open the show and press draft. Give the draft a one-line idea for the episode if you have one, or let it work from the show's premise and whatever happened in earlier episodes. It comes back with a title, a short synopsis and two to four beats. Each beat names the characters in it, suggests a set, and includes one line of dialogue. If a beat reads as action, the studio adds speed-line and impact-frame staging; if it reads as a quiet moment, it adds a slow push-in and a held expression.

Render the beats as takes, in any order. Each take shows its price before you confirm, and you can re-render a beat with a different set or outfit without touching the others. When at least two takes are finished, stitch the episode. The title card is drawn on the spot with the episode number and name, and eyecatch cards can be switched off if you want the takes to flow straight into each other.

Keeping a series going

The draft reads the synopses of earlier episodes, so each new draft picks up where the last one left off and ends on a hook. You can reorder episodes, rename them, or replace a stitched cut by stitching again after swapping a take. Deleting an episode never deletes its takes; they stay in your library in case you want them for a different episode.

The show page is public only when you say so. Flip the switch, share the address, and anyone can watch the finished episodes in order. Unfinished episodes and private cuts never appear there.

The look

Every image and take carries the same hand-drawn cel scaffold: clean line art, two-tone shading, painted backgrounds, expressive lighting. It is applied to the character sheets when they are drawn and again to every take, so you never have to describe the style yourself. Your words go to what matters: who is in the scene, where they are, what they say.

Ready when you are

The studio opens with this page's premise filled in. Change anything.

Start a mini show

Questions

How many episodes can one show have?
Up to thirty. You can keep up to fifty shows, so a long story can continue as a second show when the first fills up.
Can characters appear in more than one show?
Yes. The cast library is yours, not the show's. Any character, set, outfit or prop you have made can be attached to any show.
Do episodes have to be stitched to be watched?
Individual takes can be watched and shared on their own, but the public show page lists stitched episodes only, so a show reads as a show.
Who owns the mini series I make here?
You do. Everything the studio renders at your direction is yours to keep and use; the details live in our Terms of Service. Copyright law differs from country to country and we are not able to give legal advice, so talk to a lawyer if you need a definitive answer for your situation.
Is there a free way to try it?
New accounts receive a small starting balance of credits. It is enough to draw a character and see the style; episodes and takes are paid per the price line in the studio.

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