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Anime International Company, Inc.note  is a Japanese-based animation company established in July 1982. As of 2023, it has eight subsidiaries — AIC ASTA, AIC Build, AIC Classic, AIC Digital, AIC Frontier, AIC PLUS+, AIC Spirits and AIC Takarazuka. Another company, Artmic, was their partner for many OVAsnote . AIC is also the pioneering studio — alongside Studio Pierrot — that popularized OVAs as a concept; Megazone 23 was a smash hit on Japanese home video while it, alongside many of their other late 1980s-early 1990s OVAs are considered cult classics by many fans for their intriguing plots and gorgeous animation - in fact some consider AIC's animation style to be among the best in the entire history of animation.

Since 2006, the company (along with Singapore's NTU) has been involved with the development of software that generates in-between frames from key framesnote .

By The New '10s, most of AIC's former staff members established Production IMS (which went bust in 2018), Snowdrop, and TROYCA, and their former headquarters as of 2022 being occupied by Studio Bihou (one of their regular background partners). In 2015, the production department was dismantled and withdrew from the animation business. That December, AIC Rights was established through the company split, in which AIC Rights received the transfer of some of the copyrights of AIC's work. In 2021, AIC Rights partnered up with Toei Agency to produce new material for several of the studio's properties.

For more credits from the main studio, go to Anime News Network.

Not to be confused with Alice in Chains, which is often abbreviated as AIC


AIC and Artmic's notable productions include:

  • Bastednote 
  • "Creating Anime" - Volume 9 of Graphic-sha Publishing's How to Draw Manga book seriesnote 

Their Work on Other Projects Include:


Tropes Revolving Around The Company:

  • all lowercase letters: The 'A' in their logo is stylized as the lowercase equivalent.
  • Animated Adaptation: Plenty, chief among them are Tenchi Muyo!, Ah! My Goddess, Magical Cannan, Captain Power and Persona 4.
  • Animation Bump: Visible in much of their OVA and film work.
  • Animesque: Captain Power, Inspector Gadget and Pole Position.
  • Easter Egg/Shout-Out: The company has put their name in the backgrounds of several of their productions.
  • Fanservice
  • How the Mighty Have Fallen: Were one of the biggest names in anime for the better part of 3 decades. As of 2013, the studio mostly exists to hold on to their properties with most of its staff either forming or joining other studios or becoming freelancers, while their former HQ is now Studio Bihou's.
  • Humongous Mecha: Started off as a subcontractor for such series (Votoms, Macross) before releasing Megazone 23, their first major production. A fair bit of their other OVA and TV series work are also from this genre.
  • Stock Sound Effects: The Captain Power videos recycle a fair bit of soundbytes from Bubblegum Crisis.


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