Sunrise International is an anime studio that produce such titles as Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, Inuyasha, S-cry-ed, Witch Hynter Robin, Cowboy Bebop, Dirty Pair, and Escaflowne. They're publishing a series of articles detailing how animes get made. The articles are presented in both Japanese and English.

アニメを作るにはまず、どんなアニメを作るか、どんな人に見てもらいたいか、という企画を立てる必要があります。ここからアニメの全てが始まります。

The process of creating animation begins first with the necessary step of creating a proposal which tackles such questions as ?What kind of animation should we make?? and ?What kind of audience do we want to create this animation for?? This is where all animation starts from.

Depending on the project, either one scriptwriter is responsible for writing every episode, or there is a single person who completes an outline for the entire series (as a script or series supervisor) and then gives the job of finishing the writing of the series to another group of scriptwriters.

This last part is interesting to me, because I usually have (IMHO) good ideas for beginnings and endings for stories, but I have trouble figuring out the middle. I didn't realize that there are professional script writers out there who only lay out the general idea and let the "details" get taken care of by another group.

The episode must be cut to match broadcast times (counted in seconds).

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In TV broadcasts, even a 1 second lag is unforgivable, so it is necessary to follow the format to the letter.