D'Art Shtajio founders Make History As First Blackowned Animation Studio

History has been made for the anime Universe, especially in the diverse communities as two black background artists, Arthell and Darnell Isom alongside animator Henry Thurlow founded D'ART Shtaijo. According to CBR reports, this 2-D animation studio in Tokyo is the "first major anime studio created by Black animators'' in Japan. These three animators are creating their unique brand by infusing American culture and Japanese anime. 

In a SyFy Wire interview, Isom said, "The great thing is with us being here, Black creators seek us out. It's a great opportunity to work with them. We've worked with quite a few independent manga creators with projects like Tephlon Funk and XOGENASYS; we get the opportunity to then tell more Black stories. These are storytellers who want to see their story adapted to anime form." D'ART Shtajio since being founded has worked on several high-profile projects like JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind, Seven Deadly Sins, Gintama, Tokyo Ghoul:re, Record of Grancrest War, Overlord, and One Piece. D'ART studio has also directed some episodes of "Girl in a bottle" and "Merc Storia: The Apathetic Boy". 

They have also released in-house productions of projects that combine Western and Eastern cultures. These projects include " Sturgill Simpson presents Sound and Fury", a Netflix original anthology, and anime shorts like "Indigo Ignited." D'Art Shtajio has made tremendous impacts while advocating for the visibility of animators of color in time production history.

Before opening their studio, Arthell Isom has worked as a background animator for animation studio Ogura Kobo on popular animes like Bleach, Gintama, Black Butler, Naruto, and Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine. He also gained experience working with a mentor,  Hiromasa Ogura who is known for being the background animator on "Ninja Scroll" and "Ghost in the Shell." Thurlow on the other hand has worked both as an in-between animator and key animator. He had continually expressed misgivings about his creative input not taken seriously and the lack of accreditation for some projects. 

He said, "Back then I was drawing for Gundam and Pokémon, but my name was never mentioned and I was making $4 a day."  This led to  Arthell and Thurlow employing many foreign animators to work on major Japanese animation productions which eventually resulted in the birth of their studio. Former CEO of Anime! Anime! stated that non-Japanese animators make up only five percent of all the animators working in anime. He said, "The number of non-Japanese is increasing, not only on production work but also on anime planning, management as producers, handling rights sales and public relations."