About the studio
P.A. Works was founded November 10, 2000 as P.A. Works Corporation, adopting its shortened current name in 2002, by Kenji Horikawa, a veteran of Tatsunoko Production, Production I.G, and Bee Train. Unusually for a major anime studio, its main studio is based in Nanto, Toyama Prefecture, well outside Tokyo, with a secondary branch in the capital. *Most studios cluster tightly around Tokyo; P.A. Works decided the mountains of Toyama would do just fine.* The studio served as the main animation house for 2008's True Tears and has since built a reputation for visually detailed, often rural or regional Japan-set original series, including Shirobako, Angel Beats!, and Sakura Quest. A quarter century in, its geographic distinctiveness has become part of its identity, a studio whose sense of place shows up as much in its setting choices as in its actual location.