Why Redline's Director Says Another 100,000-Frame Epic Will Never Happen Again
Before Demon Slayer and One Piece ruled the charts, Redline set the bar—Studio Madhouse’s high-octane, fully hand-drawn epic, seven years and more than 100,000 frames in the making, and the turbocharged directorial debut of Takeshi Koike.
Before Demon Slayer was setting records and One Piece was swallowing Saturdays, a different kind of flex defined peak anime spectacle: Studio Madhouse's Redline. And according to its director Takeshi Koike, we probably are not getting another one like it.
Koike says the Redline magic is basically unrepeatable
Speaking with Anime News Network at the Scotland Loves Anime 2025 festival, Koike was clear about the cost of making Redline the way they did. The film was his directorial debut, it took seven years to finish, and the team cranked out more than 100,000 hand-drawn frames. That is not a typo. The result is why the movie still looks like it is breaking the speed limit on your TV, but it also nearly broke the people making it.
"I would love to do something like that again, but I don't think I could now. Doing all that drawing and animating with that intensity was hard. I was young then; the whole team was young. It was a miracle what we were able to pull off."
Why it is so hard to replicate Redline now
The short version: Redline was a hand-drawn endurance run. Every shot is stuffed with detail, every motion is buttery and aggressive, and the design work on characters and vehicles is dialed all the way up. To do that again, at that scale, with that many frames and that long a schedule, in today's production climate? Good luck finding a studio willing to park seven years on one movie or an animator army ready to grind that hard. Koike flat-out says the intensity would be overwhelming now.
Where the look came from
Koike also pointed to some very specific influences you can feel in Redline's silhouettes and shadows. He still rereads comics by Frank Miller (Daredevil, Batman) and Mike Mignola (Hellboy), and he says there is no current artist who has replaced them for him. If you have ever thought Redline's chunky blacks and sculpted forms look like a comic panel detonated, you are not imagining it.
How it landed, and what could come next
Redline did not light up the box office on its initial theatrical run. But once it hit home release, it snowballed into a cult powerhouse and a calling card for what hand-drawn animation can do when you throw subtlety out the window. With how far tools and pipelines have come, you could make a case that a sequel or spin-off would crush now. Whether Koike or anyone else wants to spend another seven years proving that is a different story.
- Redline (2009), Studio Madhouse; directed by Takeshi Koike (his feature debut)
- Production: roughly seven years and over 100,000 hand-drawn frames
- Influences Koike cites: Frank Miller and Mike Mignola
- Interview: Anime News Network at Scotland Loves Anime 2025
- Reception: modest in theaters; blew up on home release
- Scores: IMDb 7.5/10, Rotten Tomatoes 70%
- Streaming: currently available on Prime Video
If you have somehow missed it, Redline is the rare movie that still feels fast in 2025. And if you have seen it, you already know why Koike calls the finished film a miracle.