Polygon Pictures: 40 Years of Blood, Sweat, Tears, and Hard-Earned Acclaim

On the eighth floor of the Hotel Gracery Shinjuku in Tokyo, famous for its massive Godzilla replica that overlooks the city, posters and stills from Polygon Pictures’ 3DCG animated Godzilla trilogy are displayed at the end of a long aisle covered in dated imagery from other Godzilla movies, going all the way back to 1954. It’s hard to believe that a studio, whose films are now regarded historically important in one of Japan’s most famous pop-culture sites, had struggled for 30 years to establish themselves in the Japanese entertainment industry. 

“In the last 40 years, we’ve had so many obstacles,” shares Polygon’s president and CEO, Shūzō John Shiota on the day of Polygon’s 40th anniversary. “We were on the verge of bankruptcy so many times, went through multiple layoffs and canceled projects. It's always been a bumpy road, but we've always been able to overcome whatever came our way. We never really die, and I like to say that’s a big talent of ours.”

Take a moment to enjoy the amazing breadth and depth of their work:

The story of Polygon Pictures, an Emmy Award-winning CG studio now widely known for its Godzilla franchise as well as Netflix titles such as Ajin, and Blame!, begins with a man named Toshi Kawahara, who attended UCLA in the late 70s with the intent of studying English, but soon found himself wrapped up in the teachings of John Whitney Sr., an animation filmmaker and, according to Shiota, one of the “founding fathers” of computer graphics animation. But, after deciding to pursue the profession following graduation, Kawahara found that, after returning to Japan, becoming a computer graphics artist was much more challenging than expected. 

“Computers were super expensive back then and it wasn't something simple an entrepreneur could take on,” notes Shiota. “But in the summer of 1983, Toshi decided time was ripe, and he started Polygon as a computer graphics animation studio, even though he didn't even have a computer yet.”

Shiota says Polygon was founded more on the idea and possibilities of computer graphics than their actual application, as Kawahara spent most of his time at speaking gigs, compiling LaserDiscs full of images from artists like Oskar Fischinger and animators like Whitney Sr., as well as working with a developer to create an early version of desktop publishing software. Then, in 1988, Kawahara had an opportunity to create a full-blown studio which, in Shiota's words, “looked more like a club than a graphics studio.”

“He had a Field of Dreams mindset about it, that if he built the space, people would come,” says Shiota. “And that’s what happened.”

By the late 80s, there were only a couple CG studios in Japan, all funded by big companies. One was a joint venture between Osaka University and a Kodak film processing company, now called Imagica. Another, called Japan Computer Graphics Laboratory (JCGL), was a joint venture between Toho Animation and the publishing company Kodansha. This was also around the time companies like PDI were making their way onto the computer graphics scene in the States. 

“So, we were the 1.5 Generation of CG studios in Japan,” says Shiota. “And all these people who were working at these joint venture companies started to gather at Polygon in the evenings to drink, and they would fantasize and strategize about how Japanese computer graphics could be at the forefront of entertainment. In the early days, the industry was led by academics, so they were also discussing how they could fortify their status as top tier creators.”

While at that time computer graphics was being used in commercials, it was mostly for hard-surface characters, like cans, robots, and the like. There wasn't any application capable of animating something that was biologically dynamic. 

“These artists said, ‘If we could create an application that could do so, then we would be on top of the game,’” explains Shiota. “The group decided to focus on creating a software that could animate the most attention-grabbing, biologically-based subject they could think of: dinosaurs. The idea caught the interest of Namco, now Bandai Namco Entertainment, and they decided to provide funds while Sony provided Polygon’s first set of workstations. Some people jumped ship from other companies and this ragtag band started developing what Toshi called, ‘The Big Bang Project.’”

The following year, Polygon published the progress of their work at SIGGRAPH, and it got accepted into the Electronic Theater. The piece was called In Search of Moving Axis and featured alphabets turning into moving objects, and making muscle flexes and poses. It was one of the first cases of any company, or any studio, implementing skeleton-driven animation. Star Wars’ Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), who was at that time tasked with providing animation for Terminator 2, saw the presentation and, according to Shiota, tried to buy the software outright. 

“I don’t know if it was smart or not, but Toshi said no,” recalls Shiota. “He knew they only wanted the software and that the people at Polygon who were responsible for creating it would cease to exist if he sold it.”

Jump forward to 1993 and Polygon was in the last phase of development on their software, creating a short film called Michael the Dinosaur, which was a homage to Michael Jackson, who became a dinosaur in the short and was performing some of the singer’s famous dance moves. When the team released the film to SIGGRAPH, the Electronic Theater audience once again sang their praises. 

“People there loved it and Toshi had big plans for Michael the Dinosaur but, totally unknown to us, this was right before Michael Jackson ceased to be cool,” notes Shiota. “It was also the year that Jurassic Park was released.”

ILM’s work on Steven Spielberg’s feature about cloned dinosaurs wreaking havoc after a failed amusement park test run completely changed the game in computer graphics and even inspired notable creatives like George Lucas to pursue Star Wars prequels that would have otherwise been impossible to see to fruition. The whole endeavor was a massive win for the American CG film industry. But for Polygon, it brought about a bittersweet realization. 

“There was definitely some pride there for what we’d started,” notes Shiota. “But what was also obvious was this distance that had been created between Hollywood, who had fully embraced computer graphics, and Japan, who was still so focused on 2D and was just not providing a lot of funds for the computer graphics industry. That was when the Big Bang Project formally ended.”

Later, other CG software started releasing, such as early renditions of Houdini and Softimage. That’s when Kawahara decided to switch gears, from developing software to using already released software to create new characters and stories. Shiota started working at Polygon as an associate producer in 1996, around the time Polygon scored big with a Shiseido commercial that featured two penguins, who would become Polygon’s famous Rocky & Hopper characters.

“The commercial was this pair of penguins, who are both Rockhopper penguins, promoting hard-set hair,” shares Shiota. “It got broadcast nationally and won a lot of commercial awards. Toshi got the rights to Rocky & Hopper, and, because of their national coverage, the penguins turned into dolls for a crane game in Kabukichō, characters on men’s underwear, alarm clocks, and more which turned into something like $140 million US dollar merchandise within three years. That’s probably the one and only time that Polygon got really rich.”

The digital content economy also blew up internationally. Playstation, Sega Saturn, and other high-performance consoles started coming on the scene, and more games were being portrayed in 3D form. This was also around the time Toy Story started a new wave of fully CG features.

“The vibe was crazy,” remembers Shiota. “Everybody wanted to be the next Pixar. And money was just flowing, even in Japan. And now Polygon had money. And what do studios do when they have money? They make a feature.”

The film was supposed to be called Hopper and Polygon was once again being backed by Namco and Sony. It was budgeted to be an 80-million-dollar film with a premise of penguins-meets-Stand By Me.

“It was roughly the same story as Happy Feet, but without the music element,” says Shiota. “We spent three years trying to figure out a script while we had about 100 people employed both in Japan and in the States, and lots of expensive SGIs doing nothing. Nobody would do that now. But we were all stupid and naive, so we burned through 30 million with very little to show for it and our funders pulled out.”

Hopper crashed and burned. Later, the opportunity to make Rocky & Hopper into a TV series also never got past pre-production. Before they knew it, Polygon was on the verge of bankruptcy again. After being bailed out by some third-party investors, another gig rolled in: Digital Tokoro-san. The 3DCG TV series, which aired nationwide from 2000-2001, and was based on a celebrity named George Tokoro, included over 200 episodes, and gained Polygon some awards, and a bit of needed confidence. 

“I think it still holds up today because we weren’t trying to be at the forefront of technology. We were just trying to make it funny and on a budget,” explains Shiota. “We did away with backgrounds, were minimalist with frames and it turned into a very quirky, fun project that doesn’t age. We borrowed some concepts from our anime forefathers, like the proven method of using strong poses, and found it to be pretty groundbreaking since, at that time, CGI was used for realistic stuff with more images, more movements, and more effects. We said, ‘We're not going to do that. We don't have the money. We're going to be stylized instead.’ And that's been Polygon’s thing ever since, going places where Pixar was not.”

Polygon had found its niche, shortly after producing an experimental CG called Polygon Family. But Japan had yet to fall head over heels with CG the way America had, especially with the rise of creators like Makoto Shinkai and anime series like Evangelion.

“This producer, who I will never forget, asked me, ‘You guys have 80 people in your studio with all these machines. What's the point? People like Shinkai are making these movies on their own, and for much cheaper,’” recalls Shiota. “I responded by saying manufacturing evolved from singular craftsmen making one chair at a time to Henry Ford deciding that, in order to make cars efficiently, you need to divide the labor. It’s unreasonable to expect one guy to make a car. I told the producer, ‘Shinkai can do this stuff. But when is the next step coming? Are you going to wait another four years?’”

He continues, “There was a huge amount of skepticism towards CGI anime and the only gigs we could get in Japan were game trailers for Capcom and Konami. It was being proven in the States that there was a need for computer graphics and Japan would fall behind if we didn’t take the next step.”

Shiota went overseas in search of CG series and film production work. That’s when he came across the opportunity to work on rigging for Disney’s 2005 film Valiant. Two years later, Disney gave Polygon their first big gig with My Friends Tigger & Pooh. And, after that, Polygon’s work opportunities snowballed. 

“Both the director and producer of My Friends Tigger & Pooh moved on to Hasbro and they called me to do the Transformers: Prime series,” says Shiota. “They said, ‘We need to deliver the first episode in 10 months, and you are the only crazy guys we think are able to do it.’ And we did. And it got us our first Emmy. That gig turned into Tron: Uprising, where we came up with non-photoreal rendering shaders, or PPI shaders/PP Pixel, and while, unfortunately, not a lot of people watched it, that gig cemented us in the industry as the cool kids who come up with cool stuff.”

By a chance encounter with Jim Morris, who had been general manager for ILM and later president of Pixar, Polygon also got the opportunity to work on Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

“Jim just so happened to visit Japan as a rep of the Visual Effects Society (VES) and wanted to see if there was a need to create a branch of the VES in Japan,” explains Shiota. “So, he wanted to visit Japanese animation companies and I was his chaperone for two full days. We became super good friends and still are to this day. It was also my first time meeting Hayao Miyazaki, who’s son, Goro Miyazaki, we worked with on Ronja, the Robber's Daughter series.”

On the Japan side, Polygon continued their pursuit to come up with distinct looks. They worked on the opening animation for Capcom’s Street Fighter IV game, incorporating Japanese brushstrokes into the CG. And, in 2014, despite the fact that CG was a tool designed to mimic real-world movements and anime was a medium known for its visualization of the physically impossible, Polygon was given the opportunity to take on animation for Knights of Sidonia. Polygon went on to animate Knights of Sidonia: The Movie in 2015, as well as Knights of Sidonia: Love Woven in the Stars in 2021. 

Knights of Sidonia was also Netflix’s first original anime series, as well as the first anime series on Netflix available in Dolby Vision/HDR.

“Aside from the technical challenges of convincing creators that we could make their anime characters look cool with CG, we also had issues playing peacekeeper with the Japanese anime industry and the streaming companies,” says Shiota. “The Japanese market, where terrestrial free-to-air television is still strong, thought of the streaming services as invaders. But Greg Peters had joined Netflix and was very responsive to us. They gave us a really good deal and, one by one, we started doing all these Netflix anime projects.”

Though Knights of Sidonia is no longer available on the platform, it cemented Polygon’s position in the Japanese anime scene. Now, Blame!, Ajin, Levius, Drifting Dragons, and, of course, the studio’s Godzilla trilogy are all Polygon projects available to stream on Netflix. 

“We also delivered the whole Knights of Sidonia season about seven months prior to its release date, which was a huge thing in the Japanese anime industry,” shares Shiota. “These people were used to having stuff delivered two weeks, or even two days, before broadcast. So now we weren’t just showing a new way to do anime, we were also changing work protocols. Business magazines started interviewing us, we were seeing our stuff show up in Japanese theaters… it was so gratifying.”

Upcoming projects for Polygon, set to release in 2024, include a mixed media film project called Bloody Escape: Jigoku no Tousou Geki, a multimedia spin-off series titled The Idolmaster Shiny Colors, and MCU TV series Spider-Man: Freshman Year. Though they’ve only felt fully recognized in the last 10 years, Shiota and the rest of the team at Polygon recognize, though incredibly talented, how incredibly lucky they are to still be in business. 

“Especially if you’re looking at all the corpses of these great companies that folded, like Rhythm and Hues and Blue Sky, I can’t believe we’re still here,” says Shiota. “In Japanese legal terms, there's a way of defining corporations and individuals and both of them have the kanji ‘Hito,’ which means ‘Person.’ So, both a corporation and an individual are considered living entities, which I find very true. Polygon Pictures is the child of Toshi. And, when he decided to exit the family, I kind of became Polygon’s stepfather. If not for the resilience of this child, now a middle-aged person, it would have died. It seriously has a life of its own. There are many instances where I cannot explain why it sustained itself, other than the fact that it wants to live. And maybe because, as the blood and meat of Polygon, our team wants it to live.”

But the relief and gratitude – and being nominated for an Emmy nearly every year – hasn’t lessened Polygon’s hunger to “do what no other has done, in unparalleled quality, for all the world to see and enjoy,” as their mission statement reads. 

“We've always wanted to produce a feature length film on a global budget that is globally distributed,” says Shiota. “We've done a lot of films here in Japan, but the budgets are miniscule compared to North America. With the Godzilla trilogy, the amount of stuff we turned out for that budget is mind boggling. We’d never do it again. But I’d be excited to see, if we're given a budget that’s multiples of what we normally get in Japan, how our team would be able to use it. There’s a personal project we’re talking about right now that would be a co-production between China and Japan, and it’s being shepherded by dear friends of mine. So, I’m hoping that comes to fruition.”

Victoria Davis is a full-time, freelance journalist and part-time Otaku with an affinity for all things anime. She's reported on numerous stories from activist news to entertainment. Find more about her work at victoriadavisdepiction.com.