Make your own anime.Episode one is free.

How Night Shift was made, in five steps

Every step is something you type into Poppify chat. The prompts below are the exact ones that made this episode. Your character will come out different, because image models never draw the same picture twice. The method carries over even though the pictures won't.

1. 1
   

   Make your character first, and look at her

   Generate one still of your main character and stop. Every later shot is made from this frame, so anything wrong here repeats four more times. Build her from big, simple anchors, like one oversized jacket, one prop and one kind of light. Those survive. Fine facial detail doesn't, and nobody recognises a character by her eyelids anyway.

   Show the prompt

   Make me an anime series — "Night Shift", a quiet story set at a roadside
   fuel station at 3am. Vertical, 9:16.
   
   Before anything else, generate ONE still of the main character, from this
   prompt exactly:
   
   Anime still, night, cel-shaded with hand-painted background. A young woman
   behind the counter of a small roadside fuel-station kiosk, lit almost
   entirely by green-white fluorescent canopy light falling from above. She
   wears a company windbreaker two sizes too big, sleeves past her hands; one
   earphone in, the other hanging loose against her collar. Hair tied up
   loosely, strands escaping. Tired, calm, unbothered — not sad, not smiling.
   Medium close-up, eye level, shallow depth of field. Far behind her through
   the kiosk window, completely out of focus, the soft glow of a tall
   illuminated price sign — unreadable bokeh. Limited palette: green-white
   fluorescent, deep night blue, warm amber highlight. Hard rim light on her
   shoulder. Film grain. No text, no letters, no numbers anywhere in the
   image. Vertical 9:16.
   
   Then stop and show me the image before making anything else.

   Use this prompt in chat
2. 2
   

   Make every other shot from her picture, not from a description

   Don't describe her again. Tell Poppify to use the first image as the reference for the next shots, a wide establishing shot, a close-up detail and a closing shot. The jacket, the hair and the light come back in every frame, because the picture is holding her together.

   Show the prompt

   Use that first image as the reference for the next three shots — same
   character, same style, same night. Generate them from these prompts,
   exactly:
   
   SHOT 2 — the forecourt, wide
   Same anime style, same cel-shading and hand-painted background as image 1,
   same night, same green-white fluorescent palette. WIDE establishing shot of
   the whole fuel station forecourt at 3am, seen from across the empty road.
   Bright canopy lights flooding an empty concrete apron; a single small car at
   the far pump, tiny in frame; the lit kiosk window glowing at the back where
   the woman from image 1 sits, small and distant. Tall illuminated price sign
   on a pole at the left edge, its numbers soft and out of focus. Wet asphalt
   reflecting the canopy light. Deep night blue sky, no stars. Empty, quiet,
   enormous. No text, no letters, no legible numbers anywhere. Vertical 9:16.
   
   SHOT 3 — at the pump
   Same anime style, same cel-shading, same night and green-white fluorescent
   palette as image 1. Tight low-angle shot of a gloved hand gripping a fuel
   nozzle in the pump socket of a car, seen from the side. The nozzle, the hose
   and the car's paintwork fill the frame. The pump's display housing is turned
   completely away from the camera and is not visible at all — there is NO
   screen, NO panel, NO dial and NO signage anywhere in the frame. Behind, far
   out of focus, the warm glow of the lit kiosk window. Shallow depth of field,
   intimate, cold night air. Absolutely no text, no letters, no numbers, no
   symbols, no lettering of any kind anywhere in the image. Vertical 9:16.
   
   SHOT 4 — walking away at dawn
   Same young woman from image 1 — same oversized green company windbreaker,
   same loose tied-up hair, same earphone cord — now outside, seen from behind
   and slightly to the side, walking away from the fuel station at dawn. Small
   canvas bag over one shoulder, hands in pockets, sleeves over her hands. She
   walks past a small parked car in the foreground without turning her head
   towards it. Early dawn light: the night blue lifting to cold pale grey at
   the horizon, the canopy lights behind her still on and now weaker than the
   sky. The tall price sign glows on its pole behind her, its figures soft and
   unreadable. Long empty road ahead. Same anime cel-shaded style and
   hand-painted background as image 1. Quiet, ordinary, not tragic. No text,
   letters or legible numbers anywhere. Vertical 9:16.

   Use this prompt in chat
3. 3
   

   Put the words on a card, never in the picture

   Image models draw letters as shapes, so titles and signs come back as confident nonsense. Poppify sets your title card in real type instead. It's exact the first time, and it costs nothing.

   Show the prompt

   Add a final card. Eyebrow "THE NIGHT SHIFT", the line
   "Eleven hours selling something I walk home without.",
   footer "EP. 1". Midnight theme, left aligned.

   Use this prompt in chat
4. 4

   Make one shot move, the first one

   Generated motion is slow and it's the priciest step, so spend it once, on the shot the episode opens with. Ask for small, involuntary movement like a blink, a breath or something drifting past in the background, not acting. Camera moves over the stills take care of the rest.

   A moving shot brings its own camera move, so if you want a slow push-in there, write it into the action.

   Show the prompt

   Make the first shot live motion, with this action:
   
   She blinks slowly once and exhales; her breath fogs faintly in the cold
   air. A moth crosses the fluorescent tube behind her. Almost imperceptible
   push-in. She does not speak and does not smile.

   Use this prompt in chat
5. 5

   Choose the music by mood, then render

   Describe how it should feel instead of naming a genre. Night Shift got a slow piano-and-cello track from the library. The render takes a minute or two, and you get back the finished vertical video, ready for TikTok, Reels or Shorts.

   Show the prompt

   Find music for this — sparse piano and cello, slow, patient, nordic noir.
   Something melancholy but not sad. Then render it.

   Use this prompt in chat

Start your own series

Four openings to start from. Each one is step 1 for a different series: it makes your main character and stops so you can look at her. Change anything you like. The character is yours.

Make me an anime series — "Last Stop", quiet episodes about a night-bus
driver on the final route of the day and the one passenger who gets on.
Vertical, 9:16.

Before anything else, generate ONE still of the main character, from this
prompt exactly:

Anime still, late night, cel-shaded with hand-painted background. A woman
in her thirties at the wheel of an empty city bus, lit by warm sodium-orange
interior light against a dark violet night outside. A hand-knitted scarf far
too long for her, wrapped twice and still trailing; a dented steel thermos
on the dashboard. Short hair tucked behind one ear. Patient, a little
amused, not tired. Medium close-up from the first passenger seat, shallow
depth of field. Through the windscreen, rain-streaked city lights as soft
bokeh. Limited palette: deep violet, sodium orange, pale cream highlight.
Film grain. No text, no letters, no numbers, no route signs anywhere in the
image. Vertical 9:16.

Then stop and show me the image before making anything else.

Make me an anime series — "Second Place", about a kendo student who lost
the final and now trains alone before anyone else arrives. Vertical, 9:16.

Before anything else, generate ONE still of the main character, from this
prompt exactly:

Anime still, dawn, cel-shaded with hand-painted background. A teenage boy
standing alone in an empty wooden dojo, holding a scuffed bamboo practice
sword at his side, breathing hard. A red cloth headband with two long ends
trailing behind him; practice uniform loose at the collar. Determined,
jaw set, not angry. Medium shot, low angle, shallow depth of field. Cold
blue dawn light through tall paper windows behind him, warm reflections on
the polished floor. Dust in the light. Limited palette: dawn blue, pale
paper grey, one strong red. Hard rim light on his shoulder. Film grain. No
text, no letters, no calligraphy scrolls, no signs anywhere in the image.
Vertical 9:16.

Then stop and show me the image before making anything else.

Make me an anime series — "Lost and Found", about a clerk at the
lost-property office of a fantasy harbour town, where some of the lost
things are alive. Vertical, 9:16.

Before anything else, generate ONE still of the main character, from this
prompt exactly:

Anime still, evening, cel-shaded with hand-painted background. A young
woman behind a worn wooden counter in a cluttered lost-property office, lit
by a hanging oil lantern. Round brass spectacles pushed up into messy hair;
ink-stained shirt cuffs rolled to the elbow. On the counter in front of her,
a single long feather glowing soft teal, which she is studying with mild
suspicion. Shelves behind her crowded with odd objects — a sword wrapped in
cloth, a birdcage with its door open — all softly out of focus. Medium
close-up, eye level, shallow depth of field. Limited palette: deep moss
green, lantern amber, one teal glow. Film grain. No text, no labels, no
tags, no letters anywhere in the image. Vertical 9:16.

Then stop and show me the image before making anything else.

Make me an anime series — "Night Maintenance", about the mechanic who
keeps a giant retired robot running in a hangar nobody visits any more.
Vertical, 9:16.

Before anything else, generate ONE still of the main character, from this
prompt exactly:

Anime still, night, cel-shaded with hand-painted background. A young woman
sitting on the enormous knee joint of a dormant giant robot inside a dark
hangar, eating noodles from a paper cup. Patched, oversized flight jacket;
a wrench longer than her forearm resting beside her; grease smudge on one
cheek. Content, alone, unhurried. Medium shot from slightly below; the
robot's scratched armour plates fill the background and fall away into
shadow. A single clip-on yellow work lamp is the only light, hard and warm
on her face. Limited palette: gunmetal dark, warm off-white, one hard
yellow. Film grain. No text, no letters, no numbers, no markings or decals
anywhere in the image. Vertical 9:16.

Then stop and show me the image before making anything else.

Three things that will save you a redo

Each one cost Night Shift a regeneration before it was learned.

You can't ask for unreadable text

"Blurred" and "out of focus" still ask the model to draw text, and it draws it sharp and wrong. Take the screen or sign out of the shot entirely, by turning it away or cropping it out.

Original characters only

Prompts that name an existing show, character or studio are refused. Describe the look instead, like cel shading, hard rim light, hand-painted backgrounds and a limited palette. That's what you wanted from the name anyway.

Check each frame before the next

Shot 1 is the reference for the whole series, so look at it before you go on. Then check each new frame against it before you make another. A problem caught at one frame costs one regeneration. Caught after four, it costs four.