Watch This: Gotta Go!

A lot of the American animation produced over the past 30 years or so has been inspired by anime. Japanese animation's stylish visuals and kinetic animation have inspired generations of animators. Now Make Originals have made their first anime-inspired cyberpunk short, Gotta Go!

Gotta Go! is an anime-inspired short that pays homage to the films that inspired its artists, while reinterpreting their visual language through a contemporary creative lens. Blending hand-drawn 2D animation with stylised 3D backgrounds, the film captures the cinematic energy of classic anime without simply recreating it. 

The project marks Make's first foray into anime-inspired animation, and their first collaboration with DeeDee Animation Studio. It's also their first film to be released simultaneously across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and TikTok, ensuring audiences can watch it wherever they are.

Director and lead animator Joshua Schneider said ""Gotta Go! gave us the opportunity to explore a visual style we'd admired for years but had never tackled ourselves. Rather than recreating classic anime frame for frame, we wanted to capture what made those films so unforgettable and reinterpret those ideas through our own creative lens."

Executive Producer Danny Robashkin added: ""At the end of the day, we just want to make content people genuinely enjoy watching. MAKE Originals gives us the freedom to create stories purely for entertainment while sharing the artists, styles, and ideas that define our studio. We hope Gotta Go! leaves people wanting to see what we make next." 

Gotta Go! features a typically bad-ass female lead, on the run for unknown reasons. The combination of 2D animation and 3D environments allows for dynamic camera movement and angles, combined with the expressive possibility of hand-drawn animation. Add in a pumping synth soundtrack and it all makes for an exhilarating minute and a half. It's funny too, with visual gags abound in the backgrounds. And it all leads up to a very funny reveal that finally makes clear the significance of the title.

Also Worth Watching...

Make Originals also recently released a short making-of documentary, detailing the production of their hit series Sunny Side Down. The 14-minute doc features interviews from the artists, directors, writers and producers who helped bring the six-episode series to life.

What makes the project unique is that it was self-funded by the studio through its commercial work. It allowed them to make an original series while continuing to serve clients. Since launching in October 2025, the series has received more than 1.5 million views across the six episodes, culminating in the final episode in April 2026.

The doc offers a rare look at how an independent studio developed, financed, and produced an original animated series outside of the traditional network and streaming model.