The boy who brought anime to life in Pakistan
Usman Riaz was obsessed with anime as a child, but as an adult it took a failure in Tokyo, a horror in Boston, and an unlikely team in Karachi to reunite him with his first love.
Usman Riaz grew up in Karachi with a passion for Japanese cartoons, spending hours drawing out individual frames of Studio Ghibli films every day after school. So while he obsessed over movies like My Neighbour Totoro, Princess Mononoke and Kiki鈥檚 Delivery Service, he never dreamed he could become a hand-drawn animator because the industry didn鈥檛 exist in Pakistan.
So Usman turned to music, getting a scholarship to Berklee College in the US and found success performing for Coke Studio and NPR鈥檚 Tiny Desk. But then an awkward encounter in Tokyo, a traumatising moment at the Boston Marathon bombings, and a leap of faith propelled him to build his own animation studio. He marshalled an unlikely team of animators - including a janitor, former doctors and dentists 鈥� to create Pakistan鈥檚 first ever hand-drawn animated feature film. The Glassworker, Usman鈥檚 homage to the anime films of his childhood, was longlisted for the 2025 Oscars.
Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Taqwa Sadiq and Maryam Maruf
Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707
(Photo: Usman Riaz as a young boy. Credit: Courtesy of Usman Riaz)
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