Studio Signpost

St. Signpost Co., Ltd. (株式会社スタジオ サインポスト) is an animation studio subsidiary of Pierrot. The studio is an associate-member of The Association of Japanese Animations.

History
The company was founded in 1959 as an magazine advertising agency and stepped into the anime industry in 1989 by Keiji Kusano and Yoshikazu Tochihira. In 1993, the company took on the name Studio Kikan and released their first animated works Shima Shima Tora no Shimajirou. In 1996, the company established Arms as a separate studio to focus on adult animation and subcontracted animation work.

The studio became a subsidiary of Pierrot in 2008 and changed its name to Pierrot Plus in 2009. Kusano stepping down as CEO to become a chairman, and was replaced by CEO of Arms, Osamu Shimizu.

On September 20, 2019, the company changed its name to Studio Signpost. Ken Hagino, who had worked at Pierrot as animation producer was appointed as the new CEO. In conjunction with this change, the official website of Arms was closed down, and the company was later dissolved on October 6, 2020.

Gross outsource
Series in which Studio Signpost, Pierrot Plus, or Studio Kikan served as a gross (full) outsourcing studio, either for singular episodes or across entire series.

Representative staff

 * Keiji Kusano (co-founder, president of Studio Kikan (1989~2009))
 * Yoshikazu Tochihira (co-founder and animation producer)
 * Osamu Shimizu (Studio Kikan producer (1991~2009), president of Pierrot+ (2009~2019))
 * Ken Hagino (president of Studio Signpost (2019~present))

Animation producers

 * Shintarou Nozaki (1994~present)
 * Shingo Chiba (2007~present)
 * Yuuya Kumagai (2013~2019)
 * Kazuyoshi Ozawa (2013~present)
 * Osamu Koshinaka (also a part of ARMS)
 * Yasuyuki Ogoshi (also a part of ARMS)

Directors

 * Keizō Kusakawa (1991~2002)

Animators

 * Maya "Rin Shin" Suzuki (1991~1996; moved to ARMS; has been working with Signpost since ARMS' dissolution)