Interview: "Dragon Striker" Co-Creators on Making Disney's First Global Anime Series

When Sylvain Dos Santos and Charles Lefebvre set out to create Dragon Striker, they drew on decades of experience at animation studios in France, Japan, and the United States. The result, premiering June 9th on Disney XD and June 10th on Disney+ and Hulu, is a sprawling, visually stunning anime series that blends medieval fantasy, street-level modernity, and high-stakes magical sports into something genuinely unlike anything else on television right now. I sat down with the co-creators to talk about building the world of Kal Asterock, the philosophy behind the show's inventive tamas, and what it means to carry the Disney name into anime history.

You both have extensive experience in animation across France and Japan, and you've launched other shows, such as Droners, through your studio. What lessons did you learn along the way that made Dragon Striker possible?

Sylvain Dos Santos: It's really the addition of everything we've learned along the way, in terms of writing, design, world-building, all of it. It's very difficult to point to one specific thing, but Dragon Striker is definitely the most perfect version of what we can do at the studio.

Charles Lefebvre: It's the most advanced so far. We keep learning, especially in animation execution and in how to work with partners. That was a long process: learning what we can expect from partners, what we can't, and what we have to lead ourselves. I think that's where we've grown the most, refining our tools and processes to get faster, better results.

The world of Dragon Striker feels medieval and fairy-tale-like in some ways, but there are very modern elements too. And then there's Gorotama, this incredible sport that feels like football fused with magic. What went into building that world?

Lefebvre: The first instinct was to take the biggest footballing cultures in the world and blend them together. That's why you get this mix of medieval fantasy architecture with island settings and the color palette of somewhere like Rio de Janeiro. For the clothing, it was really about finding that balance between medieval fantasy and streetwear, trying to have something that felt both ancient and modern at the same time.

Dos Santos: Charles and I are both huge fans of The Vision of Escaflowne, Final Fantasy IX, Battle Chasers — all these universes that blend medieval elements with technology. Without even having to talk too much about how things should look, we were always in sync. It made creating the world together feel very natural.

Everyone in the show has a unique tama, and they range from the awe-inspiring — dragons, stopping time — to the delightfully silly, like Milo's jelly tama. What went into pairing personalities with tamas?

Dos Santos: The thing with tamas is that they're very personal. They're linked to your personality, your dreams, your hopes. A tama appears when you're around five or six years old, and after that you have to live with it and learn to improve it, which is exactly why Kal Asterock exists. And a tama can be literally anything. What we love about Milo's jelly tama is that it's not the shiniest or the most obviously powerful, but along the way, thanks to his friends, he gains confidence and control over it, and it ends up being one of the most formidable tamas at the school. My main reference there was One Piece. You can have a Devil Fruit that seems completely ridiculous, but if you're creative and you know how to use it, it becomes unstoppable. The limit is your imagination, and that's the beauty of it.

This show is launching globally and all at once through Disney+, which isn't how most anime typically rolls out. What does that mean to you?

Lefebvre: It's an amazing chance, quite unbelievable, honestly. Especially with the World Cup happening around the same time, it feels like the best possible backdrop for a show about a magical sport. That timing wasn't initially planned, but it couldn't have landed better.

Dos Santos: It means the world to us. Watching the trailers come out in different languages, that's genuinely crazy. And it's not just any platform. The Disney name means so much to us at the studio. Our very first studio meetings took place at Disneyland Paris. I even proposed to my wife there. We are huge fans, so to have this show on Disney+ globally, it's hard to put into words.

The lip sync in Dragon Striker appears to be timed to English, which is more like Miraculous Ladybug than typical anime. Was the voice recording done first?

Lefebvre: Yes, everything was recorded first. We had the mouth charts at the animation stage and synced mainly to English. It was actually a technique I wasn't fully sold on at first. I wondered, how can actors who are just discovering the text know more than people who've lived with the project for years? But they were genuinely incredible. They brought the right energy immediately, and the results were really impressive.

The Disney name has been on anime produced in Japan, but it's rarely gone global, and I don't believe it's ever been attached to an original anime series quite like this. What does it mean to carry that name above the title?

Dos Santos: That's totally unbelievable. It's the dream. I could stop after this. Not that we will, but this is an achievement that's hard to even fully process.

Lefebvre: Especially in France, at our studio, we always pushed the anime vision, trying to bring that style of serialized storytelling and meet the biggest possible expectations. We couldn't always say out loud what we really wanted to do. And then the opportunity came from Disney itself. That's the best thing that could have happened to us. And what we hope for most now is the chance to unfold this world even further, to do more. We hope people show up for the release.

With Dragon Striker launching to audiences worldwide, it's clear that Dos Santos and Lefebvre have built something with genuine ambition: a world dense with mythology, characters with real emotional weight, and a visual language that stands apart. If the response matches the craftsmanship on screen, it sounds like they'll get exactly the future they're hoping for.

Dragon Striker premieres with a full-season marathon on Friday, June 9th, at 5/4c on Disney XD. The entire season begins streaming Saturday, June 10th, on Disney+ and Hulu.