Toei Launches Eterna Animation With Original Short ‘Foxing: Kitsuné-tsuki’

Toei Animation celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, and with that milestone comes new faces and new challenges. Established in 2025 and launched this year, Eterna Animation is a new in-house production brand at Toei Animation, described as “a strategic hub for original IP development, dedicated to discovering, nurturing, and bringing new creative voices to audiences worldwide.” Eterna is guided by five brand principles: originality, exclusivity, artistry, decency, and quality.

Its first production is the original short film Foxing: Kitsuné-tsuki, which premiered this month at the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal. First-time director Takeru Shinozuka is a veteran animator who cut his teeth on popular franchises such as Digimon and One Piece Fan Letter. His film follows Shinano, a junior character designer at a commercial anime studio, as she wrestles with whether to pursue her own creative impulses or meet the expectations of her industry and audience. Giving voice to her desires is a mischievous masked fox doodle – one of her own drawings – perched beside her at her workdesk.

Cartoon Brew sat down with Shinozuka and producer Yoshihide Moriyama during Fantasia to discuss this new chapter in Toei’s history and the impact they hope Eterna can have on the wider anime industry.

Cartoon Brew: Moriyama-san, where did the idea for Eterna Animation begin? Did Toei’s 70th anniversary spark the project?

Yoshihide Moriyama: Toei’s 70th anniversary is actually a coincidence, but Eterna was put together because we wanted to highlight everything that Toei has carried forward. Toei works with major IPs such as One Piece and Dragon Ball. The aim [with Eterna] was to focus on creative work that we can support from beginning to end and to nurture new talent. We’re glad to have creatives like Director Shinozuka on board, and we look forward to working with more like him.

What defines Eterna as a label? What sets it apart from its contemporaries?

Moriyama: One of Eterna’s main objectives is continuity. Toei Animation began with theatrical films and later expanded into television series and other formats. Eterna takes a somewhat different approach. We are beginning with short films, but our ultimate goal is to create a sustainable path through which new creative voices and original works can continue to develop.

Short films aren’t especially common in Japan. Why did you decide to launch the project with a short for the festival circuit?

Moriyama: We view the short film form as being the most appropriate for our aims. Our goal is to make truly original works from the ground up. To develop those skills, we felt making short films was the best way to go.

How was Foxing: Kitsuné-tsuki selected as the project’s inaugural film? What you choose as a calling card is, of course, important.

Takeru Shinozuka: The aim was to create something that could be showcased at film festivals. This is my debut, so my skills are still developing. I turned to something more personal to inject as much authenticity as possible. My challenge with this short was to depict the gap between what directors can do and their mental states.

You’ve worked as an animator on many popular adaptations. Although I’m sure those experiences were rewarding, did you feel any frustration or desire to create something original of your own? I’m thinking about the film’s plot and how it might mirror your experiences.

Shinozuka: Toei makes a lot of works based on manga. There aren’t many opportunities for animators to put their own thoughts and feelings into their work. So yes, it can be frustrating, but I wouldn’t say it’s an all-consuming frustration. The main character expresses a similar frustration, but I made this short to pay homage and respect to other directors and staff who work on many different stories in many different styles. I wanted to portray how easily they can lose themselves in their work.

Your protagonist follows her own creative path rather than the demands of the commercial industry or social media. Do you believe that if you make what you want to make, you will find an audience that connects with it?

Shinozuka: I wouldn’t go so far as to say that doing 100% of what you want is the best approach. I have to think about the audience’s reaction. But it is important to follow through with what you feel is best while keeping in mind how well your audience will understand what you’re trying to convey.

Could you tell me about the film’s character and creature design and why you chose a fox to be the film’s centra figure?

Shinozuka: In Japan, foxes are perceived sometimes as divine beings; sometimes as spirits; sometimes as monsters – they have many different faces that they can take. And this is in addition to being perceived as tricksters. ‘Bake-gitsune’, or supernatural fox, is said to manipulate people and play tricks on them. The fox that I drew is itself wearing a mask – it’s hard to tell quite what it is, or what it’s thinking.

What would you like people to take away from this film, whether they are your peers at Toei, members of the audience, or part of the wider anime industry?

Moriyama: I want them to be surprised that Toei Animation would make something like this. I hope they enjoy the film and recognize Director Shinozuka’s distinctive creative vision and expressive ability.

What wider impact do you hope Eterna will have?

Moriyama: I hope that for directors like Shinozuka, this becomes a bridge toward feature filmmaking. We hope this can be a breeding ground for new auteurs. We also hope to create more opportunities for international talent to work with us in the future. We see this as the starting point for more.