A discreet yet essential figure, Masako Sakano is one of those artists whose name never appears at the top of the poster, but whose touch deeply shapes the worlds we love. From the giant robots of the 1970s to the enchanting landscapes of Ghibli, and then to the dynamic battles of Wakfu and Dofus, her career alone tells the story of a unique bridge between Japanese and French animation.
Masako Sakano began her career in the mid-1970s, during the golden age of Japanese TV animation. Her beginnings? On Great Mazinger in 1974, then on UFO Robot Grendizer (better known in France as Goldorak), where she worked as an assistant animator on clean-up and in-betweens—two terms we’ll explain simply.
What is clean-up? It’s the step where the animator’s rough sketches are “cleaned up” to produce clean lines, ready to be colored. Imagine a gray pencil sketch that you trace over with a neat black pen: that’s the idea, but with surgical precision.
In-betweens (or in-betweens in English) are the intermediate drawings between two key poses drawn by the lead animator. If the animator draws a raised hand (image 1) and a lowered hand (image 5), it’s the in-betweener who draws positions 2, 3, and 4 to ensure the movement is fluid on screen.
She then moved on to key animation (key animation or genga in Japanese) on Goldorak and Zambot 3, and later contributed to Mobile Suit Gundam. Key animation is the heart of movement: the artist draws the main poses that tell the action.
In 1984, her path crossed that of Hayao Miyazaki on Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. From the creation of Studio Ghibli in 1985, she joined Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and then worked on an impressive series of studio classics:
- My Neighbor Totoro
- Porco Rosso
- Princess Mononoke
- Whisper of the Heart
- Spirited Away
Still primarily working as an assistant animator, responsible for clean-up and in-betweens, she ensures that every line remains faithful to the character design and that every movement is fluid. She also worked on short films from the Ghibli Museum, such as Mei and the Baby Cat Bus or Monmon the Water Spider.
For over twenty to thirty years, she was one of those invisible hands ensuring precision, consistency, and smooth movement in Miyazaki’s films. In a 2009 interview in Lille, she sums up her profession with disarming simplicity:
“It’s traditional animation with a pencil and paper! (…) We also use the computer a bit, because we can’t do without it today.”
This pencil-and-paper creed, she kept it intact… until she arrived at Ankama’s studios in Roubaix. This humility also permeates her speech when discussing her own projects:
“I am a 2D animator at Ankama, but I don’t really have a project… I do have an idea that could work for a feature film, but I could never make a film like Miyazaki. It takes a team, money, talent, and I don’t have all that!”
In 2006, Masako Sakano made a move that few Japanese animators of her generation dared to make: she left Japan to settle in France. She began by collaborating with the studio Folimage on the feature film Mia and the Migou (2008), and quickly joined Ankama Animations, drawn to this young Roubaix-based studio that blended TV animation, video games, and transmedia for the still-in-development project Wakfu.
When asked what changed between Ghibli and her work in France, she replies with an almost amused smile:
“I used to spend my days drawing with pencil and paper. (…) Now, I work for Ankama, a French animation company, and it’s the same—I still use these tools.”
At Ankama Animations, Masako Sakano worked on several major projects that would mark fans of the Krosmoz. As we recalled in an article about Wakfu Season 3 in 2015, Ankama was multiplying ambitious animation projects at the time, and Masako Sakano became one of its discreet yet essential linchpins.
On the series Wakfu (2008–2017), she worked as a traditional animator and character posing artist (character posing artist) on about 52 episodes. In a studio mainly focused on Flash animation, her role was to bring that sense of organic movement, weight, and deformation straight from the Japanese school.
The Dofus Mag issue 3 (2009) “explains more broadly the situation of animation studios in France and Japan so that you can better understand why Ankama Animations is undoubtedly one of the riskiest bets of the guys from the North”, perfectly sums up the situation:
“Thus, Masako Sakano was doing traditional animation at Studio Ghibli and continues to do so (but in Roubaix). The only notable difference is that there are a few more computers between her pencil and the viewer.”
This statement is more than just a catchy slogan: it precisely describes what she brings to Wakfu. Her poses serve as the basis for animations later finalized in Flash, but the heart of the movement—the intention, the energy, the clear silhouette—comes from hand-drawn art.
This influence can be seen in many combat scenes, chases, and expressive character reactions: the timing (speed of movement) and spacing (distance between drawings) often evoke a more “sakuga” sensitivity—a Japanese term for particularly well-crafted and fluid animation sequences—inherited from her Ghibli years.
A French animator, Floriane Grivillers aka Foya, also testified on LinkedIn about the pleasure of working on Masako Sakano’s genga for Wakfu.
Masako Sakano is not limited to Wakfu. She also became one of the key players in the animation of Ankama’s other major franchise, Dofus: on the series Dofus: The Treasures of Kerubim (2013), she worked on 52 episodes as a lead character layout artist, meaning she was primarily responsible for the layout of characters and key poses.
A character layout artist, simply put, is the person who decides how characters are placed in the shot, the angle from which they are seen, and how they integrate into the background. It’s a mix of staging and technical drawing, preparing the ground for animators.
She then contributed to the feature film Dofus – Book I: Julith (2015), where her experience at Ghibli found a natural echo in the film’s cinematic ambitions. The project clearly displayed its ambitions at the Annecy Festival 2015: to raise the level of French animation with highly choreographed fights, fine expressions, and controlled cartoon deformations.
One project particularly crystallizes the dialogue between Japanese and French animation around Wakfu: the OVA “Ogrest, the Legend”, a 45-minute special produced by Ankama Japan in 2011. The film is often presented as a successful example of this French studio/Japanese talent cooperation. Unlike the main series, produced mainly in Flash, the Ogrest episode is animated entirely in traditional 2D, with a mixed Franco-Japanese team.
Today, Masako Sakano still works as a freelance 2D animator in France, collaborating with various studios while continuing her unique journey between Japan and Europe. On her LinkedIn profile, she describes herself as “Freelance 2D Traditional Animator” and specifies: “experienced in Japanese and French Animation Industry. I am always interested in cute projects, short films, and feature films.”
In September 2024, she posted on LinkedIn that she was looking for work in the Lille area or for international remote work. She is regularly invited to festivals (Paris Manga, Jonetsu, animation meetings) to talk about her profession and this dual professional culture.
For Wakfu fans, knowing that an animator who worked on in-betweens for My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away also worked on poses for Yugo, Amalia, or Kerubim gives a special flavor to every well-animated shot.
Masako Sakano is proof that between the forests of Totoro and the plains of the World of Twelve, there is sometimes just one line, drawn by pencil, by the same hand.