Anime Studio Pro 5

While Anime Studio 5 definitely isn't a program that you can dive in and start using without at least a passing knowledge of the fundamentals of animation, it still provides a rich, full-featured animation experience that simplifies the process and allows you to produce high quality animations for less effort.

Pros

Cons

After toying with a number of animation products marketing themselves as specifically for anime and finding nothing but clunky, difficult software, I didn't have much hope for Anime Studio.

It's not often that I'm so relieved to be wrong.

Despite opening the program for the first time, I still felt as if I was dealing with something welcomely familiar. The interface reminds me of a combination of 3D Studio Max, Toon Boom Studio, and Adobe Premiere, and all the familiar elements of timelines, layers, drawing tools, and animation tools were clearly presented with only a little poking around required to learn what does what, and how to tweak it. I didn't even have to glance at the beginner's guide to start sketching out little animations. It's a comfortable home for anyone familiar with the principles of animation, with all the tools you need easily accessible.

My favorite part of the program is that the drawing tools are vector based, and adjusting the vector points is quite easy - easier even than in Flash. A close second, though, is the bone system; like 3DSMax and Toon Boom, Anime Studio offers a bone system that allows you to take a static drawing, break it down into parts, and then assign "bones" to it to control its movement. Rather than drawing the same thing over and over again just to move a character's arm, you can instead tweak the drawing, assign a few bones, set your keyframes, and let the program do the work for you.

Depending on the functionality, you can purchase Anime Studio for anywhere from $49.99 to $199.99 - and you definitely get what you pay for. Anime Studio is a great low-cost competitor to other animation programs that offer the same features at a higher price.