Job Description
Give our characters the movement, personality, and presence players remember.
Kuri Kuma Games is building an original anime-styled game for mobile and PC, and we are looking for a 2D Animator experienced with Live2D or Spine to bring its cast to life.
This role is not limited to rigging completed artwork. As an early member of the art team, you will help define how characters move, react, emote, and communicate their personalities on screen. You will collaborate with character designers from the concept stage, shape how source art is prepared, and establish animation standards for the project.
Our goal is to make characters feel alive before they say a word. If you care about expressive acting, polished motion, and the small details that make players connect with a character, we would love to hear from you.
Applicants must currently be located in Japan.
Responsibilities
- Rig and animate anime-style characters in Live2D, Spine, or a comparable 2D animation workflow.
- Create expressive idle motion, facial animation, reactions, transitions, special animations, and other character performances.
- Translate character personalities, emotions, and story moments into appealing motion.
- Work closely with character designers to plan layers, pivots, deformations, alternate parts, and other animation requirements before artwork is finalized.
- Provide clear feedback and templates that help artists prepare production-ready layered files.
- Establish quality standards and reusable rigging and animation conventions for the project.
- Optimize rigs and animation assets for reliable use in a mobile and PC game.
- Collaborate with artists, designers, and engineers to integrate and refine animation in the game.
Qualifications
Requirements
- A strong portfolio or reel showing expressive 2D character animation.
- Professional or equivalent production experience with Live2D or Spine.
- Strong animation fundamentals, including posing, timing, spacing, weight, overlap, and appeal.
- Experience rigging layered character artwork and creating natural, high-quality deformations.
- A good eye for facial expression, acting, secondary motion, and subtle details that communicate personality.
- The ability to identify art-preparation issues and collaborate with artists on practical solutions.
- Good communication skills and the ability to give and receive clear creative feedback.
Nice to Have
- Experience working on mobile games, visual novels, VTuber projects, or character-collection games.
- Experience with both Live2D and Spine.
- Experience integrating or optimizing animation assets in Unity or another game engine.
- Familiarity with physics setups, masking, mesh construction, facial systems, and reusable rig components.
- Experience animating alternate costumes, expressions, accessories, or character variants.
- An understanding of Japanese anime and game animation trends.
About the Company
Kuri Kuma Games is an indie studio focused on creating intriguing worlds with engaging gameplay and lovable characters.
We're a small team based in Japan, building our first title from the ground up — where art direction, character design, and moment-to-moment joy come before everything else.
We give people genuine ownership over their work, and we believe the best games are made by people who truly care about what they're making.
Why Join Kuri Kuma Games?
- Define how the characters of a new original IP move and express themselves from the beginning.
- Work on performances that are central to character appeal, not secondary production polish.
- Collaborate directly with character designers and influence how artwork is created for animation.
- Help establish a scalable animation pipeline and quality bar for a growing project.
- Join a small team where your creative judgment has a direct and visible impact.