“Lieberman isn’t exactly a common name in the credits of an anime.” That is roughly how Yotam Lieberman — an Israeli animator and a student at the Japanese Language Centre in Tel Aviv — sums up what he has pulled off: breaking into Japan’s notoriously closed animation industry not from the bottom rung, but straight into the role of key animator.
His story surfaced in the centre’s community channel, alongside a podcast interview on the Hebrew-language show Japan in 15 Minutes (יפן ב-15 דק׳) and a profile in Portfolio magazine.
From Shenkar to Tokyo studios#
Lieberman is a fourth-year visual communication student at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design. Rather than wait for a studio to come calling, he taught himself the craft of Japanese animation and posted his work online — gradually drawing the attention of the industry. A producer at a major Japanese studio sent him a test assignment; he passed, and referrals followed.
That entry point is itself unusual. In Japan, animators typically start at the bottom — drawing the in-between frames between an animator’s key poses, or doing cleanup and colour — and only climb to the key animator role after years. Lieberman went in at that senior level from the start.
The projects#
- Netflix’s Kill Blue — Lieberman worked as key animator on 12 shots in episode 6, taking responsibility for scene composition and character animation. The episode centred on a school soccer match, which meant studying the movements of real footballers as reference.
- Adidas Japan × FIFA 2026 — He was a key animator and directed one shot in an Adidas campaign tied to the World Cup, featuring the Japanese national team and the Japanese singer Ado.
As a key animator, his job is to turn an abstract storyboard into real movement, composition and character — building the artistic “skeleton” before the colour, polish and secondary animation stages, and writing the detailed instruction sheets that guide the animators who come after him.
Language was the key#
Lieberman understood early that without Japanese he would never be a real part of the industry. Injured during his military service, he used the recovery time to study the language on his own through books and the internet, took private lessons in Israel, and then spent three months travelling solo in Japan to practise and build connections — the groundwork that later let him work inside Japanese studios on Japanese terms.
For Israel’s growing community of Japan enthusiasts — and the students of Tel Aviv’s Japanese Language Centre in particular — his path is a concrete answer to a question many ask: whether an outsider can really make it inside one of Japan’s most demanding creative industries.
Featured image: original key-animation artwork by Yotam Liberman, via his Instagram.
Sources: Portfolio magazine (Yuval Saar, 30 May 2026); the Japan in 15 Minutes podcast; shared via the Japanese Language Centre community channel.
