The boy who brought anime to life in Pakistan

Usman Riaz grew up in Karachi with a passion for Japanese cartoons, spending hours drawing out individual frames of Studio Ghibli films every day after school. So while he obsessed over movies like My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Kiki’s Delivery Service, he never dreamed he could become a hand-drawn animator because the industry didn’t exist in Pakistan.

So Usman turned to music, getting a scholarship to Berklee College in the US and found success performing for Coke Studio and NPR’s Tiny Desk. But then an awkward encounter in Tokyo, a traumatising moment at the Boston Marathon bombings, and a leap of faith propelled him to build his own animation studio. He marshalled an unlikely team of animators - including a janitor, former doctors and dentists – to create Pakistan’s first ever hand-drawn animated feature film. The Glassworker, Usman’s homage to the anime films of his childhood, was longlisted for the 2025 Oscars.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Taqwa Sadiq and Maryam Maruf

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(Photo: Usman Riaz as a young boy. Credit: Courtesy of Usman Riaz)