Shirobako

Shirobako
Promotional poster.
Genre	Comedy-drama
Manga
Shirobako: Kaminoyama Kōkō Animation Dōkōkai
Written by	Kenji Sugihara
Illustrated by	Mizutama
Published by	ASCII Media Works
Demographic	Shōnen
Magazine	Dengeki Daioh
Original run	September 27, 2014 – November 27, 2015
Volumes	2
Anime television series
Directed by	Tsutomu Mizushima
Produced by	Warner Entertainment Japan
Written by	Michiko Yokote
Music by	Shirō Hamaguchi
Studio	P.A.Works
Licensed by	AUS Madman Entertainment NA Sentai Filmworks
Original network	Tokyo MX, TVA, MBS, TUT, BS Fuji, AT-X
Original run	October 9, 2014 – March 26, 2015
Episodes	24 (List of episodes)
Novel
Shirobako Introduction
Written by	Michiko Itō Hajime Tanaka
Published by	Shueisha
Demographic	Male
Imprint	Jump j Books
Published	January 27, 2015
Original video animation
Exodus! Episode 1: Exit Tokyo
Directed by	Tsutomu Mizushima
Written by	Michiko Yokote
Music by	Shirō Hamaguchi
Studio	P.A.Works
Released	February 25, 2015
Runtime	25 minutes
Original video animation
The Third Girls Aerial Squad Episode 1
Directed by	Tsutomu Mizushima
Written by	Michiko Yokote
Music by	Shirō Hamaguchi
Studio	P.A.Works
Released	July 29, 2015
Runtime	25 minutes

Shirobako (シロバコ^?, lit. White Box) is an anime television series produced by Warner Entertainment Japan and studio P.A.Works, which handled the animation. The series was directed by Tsutomu Mizushima and aired in Japan between October 9, 2014 and March 26, 2015. A manga adaptation began serialization in ASCII Media Works's Dengeki Daioh magazine in September 2014, and a novel was published by Shueisha in January 2015.

The title Shirobako refers to videos that are distributed to the production staff members prior to its release. These videos were at a time distributed as VHS tapes enclosed in white boxes and are still referred to as "white boxes" (thus the meaning of shirobako) despite the fact that the white enclosures are no longer in use.

The story follows a group of five best friends, Aoi Miyamori, Ema Yasuhara, Shizuka Sakaki, Misa Tōdō, and Midori Imai, who all go into the anime industry after their experiences in the animation club of their high school, with the dream of working on an actual anime together one day. The girls all go into different fields of specialty: Ema is a key animator; Shizuka is a voice actress; Misa is a 3D computer graphics operator; Midori, still a college student, aspires to become a story writer; and Aoi is a production assistant, though she has no true idea about what to pursue as a career. However, the girls experience various obstacles in their careers: Aoi and Ema, new employees at animation studio Musashino Animation, find themselves under extreme stress every day from their demanding workloads as they work on company projects; Shizuka struggles to find a voice acting job she can be satisfied with; and Misa experiences difficulties in adjusting to her unsatisfactory workplace. The story largely follows Aoi as she struggles to do her job by making all of the necessary deliveries and coordinating efforts between other staff members involved in Musashino Animation's projects.