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Thomas Romain

Thomas Romain is a French 2D animator. He now lives in Japan. He's most famous for co-creating Code Lyoko and working on Ōban Star-Racers, the former of which he left early on, and the latter of which was the start of his career in Japan.

He speaks fluent French, intermediate Japanese, and intermediate English.

Early Life[]

Romain attended Lycée Lakanal in his youth, the school Kadic Academy was based on.[1] He initially studied to become an engineer in college, but eventually realized that he didn't have the personality for it, saying "[...] The main [factor] was that there were students around me who were really passionate about science. At weekends, they were building electronic circuits at home, or doing programming, while I was playing video games and drawing! I realized that I'd never be able to compete with them in the scientific field [...]".[2]

From there, he dropped out and worked on comic strips at multiple studios throughout the late-90's. He later met Savin Yeatman-Eiffel, who was putting together a team for the prototype of Ōban Star-Racers. Savin advised Romain to enter Gobelins, an elite animation school in France. It was there that he was exposed to anime, which had an impact on him: "[...] I had a revelation about Japanese animation, thanks to the arrival in France of works such as Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop, FLCL and Mononoke Hime. The contrast with the disappointing, not to say dismayingly ponderous, Disney output of the time was striking, and from then on my eyes turned resolutely to Japan."

Involvement in Code Lyoko[]

Thomas Romain and Tania Palumbo co-produced Les enfants with their Gobelins classmates Jérôme Cottray and Stanislas Brunet, which was intended to serve as the introduction short for the 2000 Annecy International Animated Film Festival.[2][3]

The pair were hired by Antefilms to turn the short into a series, being impressed by its atmosphere.[1] They put together the concept for Garage Kids with the help of Carlo de Boutiny and animated the pilot in 2001. From there, the project evolved into Code Lyoko and the three co-wrote the series bible. Romain was unhappy with the direction the series was heading, specifically the transition from a serialized story to an episodic one.

Developing Code Lyoko and Ōban Star-Racers simultaneously, Romain eventually decided in 2003 that he had to make a choice between the two:

I couldn't reasonably run [Code Lyoko and Ōban] at the same time. With Savin, we wanted to avoid the shaky production system of French animated series by going to Japan to make the series. Japan had become an obsession for me, a dream that was initially unattainable but which, thanks to Ōban, was becoming increasingly real. Code Lyoko was also inspired by Japanese series, but as Moonscoop is a well-established company with established working practices, we couldn't envisage a Japanese-style animation and staging, nor a writing style that would follow.

In short, Code Lyoko couldn't become the series I'd dreamed of making, despite its potential. So I left it to the rest of the team and concentrated exclusively on developing the Ōban universe with Savin Yeatman-Eiffel and Stanislas Brunet, who was in my class. At the end of 2003, we packed our bags and headed for Tokyo, to experience the incredible adventure of producing the series.[2]

Involvement in Ōban Star-Racers[]

Having left Code Lyoko, Thomas Romain went to work on the French-Japanese animated series Ōban Star-Racers. The show lasted one season, during which he worked with Olivier Poirette.

He used this gig as a springboard to move to Japan and work in the anime industry. Locally, he is known as ロマン・トマ, Roman Toma.

Later Works[]

After Code Lyoko and Ōban Star-Racers, Romain has gone to work on a number of anime.[4] This is an incomplete list:

Twitter Feed[]

References[]

External Links[]

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