SF Animation

Not to be confused with SF Studios, a film studio based in Sweden.

SF Animation is a Japanese-South Korean animation studio founded in August 13th 1963 by Byung-Ho Jeong.

The company has a Japanese sister studio, SF Animation Japan, in Sapporo.

History
SF Animation was founded in 1961 as Silver Films STAR Animation by Byung-Ho Jeong, attempting to create an animation division for Silver Films. The studio animated 10 minute long short films until 1964, when they would create their first TV series, The Portal. The series was very successful in South Korea, which motivated the company to make more shows.

In 1976, the company was renamed to "Silver Films Animation Group", since Silver Films and its associating divisions had rebranded, no longer using the "STAR" branding.

On September 18th 1983, Silver Films Animation Group Japan was created in attempt to bring its style of animation to Japan after the Japanese product ban, and the Japanese studio's first show was "COOL BUT WHY!?"

Around 1992, the South Korean studio had signed a contract with the Venezuelan studio Pitch!Animation and started to animate shows together, the first being "Zoe N' Friends", after SFAG had signed a deal with the Osaka based company Keypoint Enterprises to use their popstar character Zoe Sanika, which then Zoe N' Friends had became Zoe's first show starring her.

On July 6th 1997, the South Korean studio received heavy amounts of backlash after the premiere of the Zoe N' Friends episode "Be Like ME!" which had a scene where Zira takes a skinny dip in a public pool, which resulted in backlash (despite no rude parts being shown) due to stories of children copying what Zira had done. The episode was eventually banned in South Korea and other countries, resulting in SFAG cutting ties with Pitch!Animation, due to Pitch being responsible for the damage. The show continued on after that, without Pitch being involved.

On February 1st 1999, SFAG Japan reached its biggest milestone yet, after the premiere of the first episode of Team One Gen. 1 reached up to 9.4 million viewers on one day.

On October 7th 2004, SFAG released its first movie, Lolo's Life which both South Korean and Japanese studios worked on. It gained huge amounts of popularity at the time after a Flash animation was made after the movie was created by a user from the United Kingdom. This resulted in SFAG Japan and South Korea gaining recognition worldwide. This led to the studios making many films after.

In 2006, Manga producer Yui Ishida started to work at SFAG Japan, and became the most well-known producer of the company lifetime since Tia Maie Chan. She has produced many TV shows and movies of the company.

On March 9th 2008, SFAG signed a contract with Early View Records, agreeing that SFAG Japan can publish songs under the Early View label. Many of their songs on their shows and their movies are published by Early View.

In 2011, SFAG South Korea celebrated its 50th anniversary. To celebrate the anniversary, a SFAG museum was opened in Adachi City, Tokyo, Japan.

Also in 2011, the South Korean studio did its first overseas production with The Walt Disney Company and Kickstart Productions to make Happy Monster Band: The Movie, providing animation for the movie.

In 2012, SFAG Japan was granted permission by Bandai to use their characters in their works. This resulted in SFAG Japan making many doujin works based on Tamagotchi.

On August 3rd 2016, 5 days before the premiere of Memetchi: The Movie, SFAG Japan was renamed to SF Animation, in attempt to shorten the name. However, the South Korean studio keeps the old name intact. In 2018, several months after the premiere of Memetchi Adventures, many girls in Japan started to get a "Kamifuwa cut", based on Kamifuwa's short and fluffy hair. However, her hair is actually based off a pixie cut. In that same year, when the ban on Japanese products was lifted, the South Korean studio's shows got Japanese dubs and started airing in Japan.

In 2022, SF Animation of Japan announced a triquel to Memetchi: The Movie 1 and 2. It is set to release in 2023, the year the Japanese studio will hit 40 years old. old.