N LITE adds four veterans to board as anime slate grows
Anime studio N LITE has appointed four industry veterans to its board of directors, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The announcement was reported on 14 October 2026.
N LITE is a media company and anime studio based in the United States and Tokyo. Anime is Japanese-style animation, now watched widely around the world. The company is led by founder and chief executive Christiano Terry.
One new board member named is Jay Francis, former vice-president at Disney Television Animation. That is the division that makes animated series for television. Francis created the Disney TVA Writing Program, a scheme to find and train new writers, and helped guide series including Phineas and Ferb, Big City Greens and The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder.
The board additions support a wider push across feature films, television, consumer products and publishing. N LITE describes its work as bridging Hollywood and Japanese anime, with stories centred in the African and Indigenous diaspora.
Its flagship project is MFINDA, an original fantasy epic in development as an anime feature film. Producing partners on the film include distributor GKIDS, Viola Davis and Julius Tennon's JuVee Productions, Joel Embiid's Miniature Geant, and Jaden Smith, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The studio is building MFINDA out in several directions at once. It has announced a serialised manga adaptation with Japanese publisher Kodansha. Manga are Japanese comics, often released chapter by chapter. This version will serve as a prequel to the feature film. A making-of documentary, MFINDA: Spirits of the Congo, is planned for release in parallel with the film.
Three other projects are on the slate. N LITE is developing a film version of the classic manga Jungle Emperor Leo with Tezuka Productions, the Japanese company that guards the work of creator Osamu Tezuka. It is also developing WEBE: Spirit Detective, an original Southern gothic horror anime, with Willow Smith and Peter Ramsey as executive producers. An executive producer oversees a project creatively or financially without directing day-to-day work.
The third project is IFE: Secret of the Star Child, an anime series with Ramsey and Gary Trousdale attached as executive producers.
For fans, this means the studio is laying track for the long term. Boards do not make cartoons. They shape deals, hiring and release plans. A stronger board gives a young studio more weight when it talks to publishers, distributors and production partners.
