Anime styles are the looks of Japanese animation, from ink-outlined retro cel to soft painted pastoral. To get one in AI video, name its line, colour and texture in the prompt, then keep the motion small.
By Zoey Z.Last updated
Most guides to anime styles show still pictures, which never tell you whether a look survives once it starts to move. We searched the 9,960 prompts behind 66 team and residency films with public canvases on Flick, and picked 4 looks from 5 films that hold up in motion. Each one below plays as a real AI clip beside the exact prompt that made it, with the words that set the style. The closest cousin here, donghua, is Chinese animation rather than anime, and the page says so where it appears.
| Style | What you see | Words from the prompts | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Retro cel | Ink outlines, flat colour, film grain | anime cel shading style, muted red cream and teal palette | See retro cel |
| Soft pastoral | Watercolour fields, round figures, soft edges | hand-painted 2D animation art style | See soft pastoral |
| Painted donghua | Fine brushwork, golden light, flowing robes | soft cel-shading with visible refined brushwork | See painted donghua |
| Rainy city | Night windows, amber lamps, blue shadows | painterly illustration style, soft line art | See rainy city |
Zoey Z. ends the prompt with retro anime-style and describes the acting in order, so two glances become the whole scene.
This woman is very shy, then glances at the boy, and then the man also secretly looks at the girl, overall it's retro anime-style
One hand action in a detailed room suits this look, since the painted background can hold still while the character moves in front of it.
camera locked. winds gacha machine and ball falls out
One plain sentence carries this 30 second shot in To My Grandma, which starts from a Midjourney image and animates in Seedance 2.5.
As they walk, the girl slowly grows up and taller, while her grandmother gradually grows older and smaller.
Zoey Z. wrote this prompt in Chinese, and a line of plain description was enough because the Midjourney start frame already held the style.
外婆抱着小猫在寒风中
Donghua is Chinese animation, and Sue Ellen Zhang's Finishing Touch opens its style line with Chinese donghua background art while ruling out manga style, so treat this as a neighbour of anime rather than a type of it.
The prompt describes the gesture, the words and how the line should land, which gives Kling O3 Pro direction for both the acting and the voice.
She slowly extends her hand toward the dragon painting, indicating its unfinished face with a composed, almost sacred gesture. Looking at it with quiet certainty, she says, “If I paint the eyes, they will fly away.” The line should land with mystical confidence and an air of prophecy.
00:05Spelling out a single touch and lift keeps the brush from dragging across the painted dragon, so the small moment reads clearly.
A close-up of a delicate hand holding a traditional bamboo calligraphy brush. The brush tip moves in a single, deliberate, and precise tapping downward motion. The tip of the brush lightly touches the exact center of the dragon's blank, white eye socket, depositing a single, crisp black dot to form the pupil. Crucial detail: The brush makes only one brief point of contact and immediately lifts up slightly. The brush does absolutely zero dragging, sweeping, or drawing of lines. @element2 The final result is a single, perfect black dot resting right in the middle of the dragon's eye, slightly toward the front of the snout. @element3
Five words are enough for a walk once the frame already holds the robes, the palace and the painted style.
she walks with the supplies
A slow push and distant birds bring a painted background to life without disturbing the brushwork, which makes a calm establishing shot.
camera pushes in as birds fly in the distance
A Midjourney image on the canvas of Jaime Yao's In Our Time asks for painterly illustration style, soft line art, cinematic lighting, gentle rain reflections, and names Studio Ghibli and Makoto Shinkai's urban rain scenes as its comparison.
Two short sentences work here because the frame already holds the window, the city and the colour contrast the style depends on.
t’s raining heavily outside. The oil lamp’s flame flickers. Shadows on the desk move slightly with the flickering light.
Listing what stays still before what moves keeps the distant city locked in place, so the motion stays in the foreground where the eye rests.
Locked camera. Outside sky and distant city stay perfectly still. A light breeze moves only the foreground: the curtain gently sways once, the wooden shutter/door shifts a tiny amount, small plants near the sill tremble. The kerosene flame softly flickers, causing slight warm brightness changes on the nearby inner wood only. Then everything settles.
Step 1
Describe the line, the colour and the texture once, as Finishing Touch does with its style wrapper, then paste the same line into each image prompt so the shots match.
Step 2
Generate front, side and back views in your style, then attach the sheet to every shot, because a drawn face can change from shot to shot when it is left to the prompt alone.
Step 3
Generate each frame in the style first, or restyle an existing frame with a short edit such as make the image look like soft cel animation, so the look is settled before you spend credits on motion.
Step 4
Write camera locked and name one action, as 9 of the 12 written video prompts in Obsession x Perfect Blue do, since limited animation is a defining trait of anime and small moves keep the drawing steady.
Common anime art styles include retro cel with ink outlines and flat colour, soft painted pastoral and painterly rainy city scenes. Terms such as shonen, shojo and seinen describe the audience for a series rather than one way of drawing it.
Anime is known for limited animation, flat expression, large eyes and colourful, exaggerated hair, though Wikipedia's anime article notes a wide variety of art styles and no single dominant one. In an AI prompt, try words such as cel shading, ink outlines and a limited palette to ask for this look.
The 1990s anime style usually means hand-painted cels: visible ink outlines, flat shading, a muted palette and some film grain. The Flick 1990s anime page is built around this look, and the words to try in a prompt are cel shading, muted palette and grain.
AI video can make the soft painted look people call Ghibli style, using a painted start frame, watercolour fields and a still camera. Describe the look rather than copying a film, since Studio Ghibli's films and characters belong to the studio.
Anime is animation from Japan and donghua is animation from China, and the two share many drawing conventions such as cel shading and painted backgrounds. A prompt can name either one as a style word, then describe the line, colour and setting you want.
Flick filmmakers have made anime style clips with Seedance 2.0, Seedance 2.5, Seedance Pro and Kling O3 Pro, all on the Standard plan ($20 a month). You can try the same approach on a free account with MiniMax H3 Max, using 100 credits you get when you sign up.
Pick one look, write its style line, and animate your first frame on one Flick canvas.
Try for free, no credit card required.
Ask AI about this page:ChatGPTPerplexityClaude
