The COVID-19 pandemic, now entering its third year, has done to the Japanese animation industry the same thing it has done to many others — pushed trends that were already unfolding into warp speed.

Case in point: digitization. For years, animators in Japan have stubbornly held on to paper and pencil to draw keyframes. While tasks like coloring and special effects have long since moved to the digital realm, this decidedly analog first step means lots of paper being stuffed into envelopes, collated and scanned in by harried production assistants.

However, the era of remote work has pushed more animators to go digital, either scanning in their pencil-and-paper frames at home or starting from digital scratch, with advances like the Apple Pencil making it easier to say goodbye to the physical.

This march of ones and zeroes is a mixed blessing for studios and animators. On the one hand, it’s allowing the industry to expand to places other than Tokyo. Japanese animators are notoriously underpaid, and the ability to work from anywhere means they can escape to areas with cheaper rent and better living conditions. Studios are also taking advantage of this situation: Late last year, production house Eight Bit announced plans to open a branch in Niigata, where it expects to receive government subsidies for helping revitalize the area. Digital submission has also allowed people from around the world to participate in the industry. Young animators outside Japan, raised on a diet of anime, are now helping produce it from oceans away.

But as anyone who has worked remotely the past two years knows, it isn’t all positive. For one, the lack of in-person communication has put a damper on networking and creativity. Since most animators are freelance, conversations at the water cooler or the local pub are often key for finding that next job or swapping ideas. It also forced animators, often on tight deadlines and budgets, to double as their own production assistants, investing time and money on expensive scanners or computing devices. But even if and when animators get back to meeting up in-person, the digital revolution is here to stay.

Meanwhile, the international market will continue to grow in importance. The year 2020 was the first in which anime made more money abroad than in Japan. Giant media companies have figured out that their audiences live all over the world — even Disney+ got in on the game last year. And in the early days of 2022, one of the few remaining independent anime distributors in the United States, Houston-based Sentai Holdings, was purchased by AMC Networks, the company responsible for prestige dramas such as "Mad Men" and "The Walking Dead."

The old business model, pioneered in the 1980s and ’90s by folks like Sentai, was to simply license and localize whatever Japan had to offer. But big boys like Disney and Netflix are taking a more active role in the creation of content, commissioning projects like “Star Wars: Visions,” an omnibus of shorts set in the “Star Wars” universe, or “Yasuke,” a series helmed by an American director about a real-life Black samurai. Projects such as these have caused heated debates online about what should or shouldn’t be considered “anime,” but with sales increasing abroad, international productions are likely to keep coming.

At the same time, while the domestic market may be shrinking, it’s proving less fickle than those overseas. China is one example: Starting last year, it began taking an even harder line on what kind of content it allows into the country. Chinese censors now require an entire anime series to be presented for approval, not just one episode at a time, making simultaneous streaming virtually impossible. Its censors are also now rejecting more titles outright. Production committees depending on the Chinese market may be forced to reconsider their content — and adjust their production schedules — to fall in line.

In terms of titles aimed primarily at Japanese audiences, isekai — tales of men and women transported from their boring lives to fantasy worlds — will continue to be dominant in 2022. (Who wouldn’t want to be transported to another world right about now?) In addition, look for producers to try to replicate the success of “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba” by funding high-quality adaptations of popular shōnen (boys) manga, such as the upcoming “Chainsaw Man.” In the theatrical realm, staples like “Detective Conan” and “One Piece” will be joined by original properties like “Bubble,” which owes a clear visual debt to the Makoto Shinkai hits “Weathering With You” and “Your Name.” Speaking of Shinkai, his own new film, “Suzume no Tojimari,” is headed to theaters this fall.

Anime titles to look forward to in 2022

“Chainsaw Man”: “Chainsaw Man” follows the successful formula set by “Demon Slayer” and “Jujutsu Kaisen,” a popular title from the pages of Shonen Jump animated by MAPPA, one of Japan’s top studios that also helmed the final season of “Attack on Titan.” An exact release date has not yet been announced.

“Uzumaki”: An adaptation of a manga from master of horror Junji Ito, “Uzumaki” is about a small town that is terrorized by some seriously spooky spirals. It’s set for this fall.

“Suzume no Tojimari”: The latest film from Makoto Shinkai (“Your Name.”), “Suzume no Tojimari” is about a teenage girl who travels around Japan closing “doors of calamity” before they can cause, well, calamity. It’s also set to hit theaters in Japan this fall.