Shaft, also known as Shaft Animation Studio, is a Japanese animation studio headquartered in Suginami, Tokyo, and founded in 1975. Since 2004, the studio's productions have been broadly influenced by director Akiyuki Shinbo, whose visual style and avant-garde cinematography are featured in works including Hidamari Sketch (2007), Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (2007), the Monogatari series (2009–present), Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011), Nisekoi (2014), and March Comes In Like a Lion (2016).

Hidamari Sketch is a Japanese yonkoma manga series written and illustrated by Ume Aoki. It follows a group of young female art students, and following their daily lives as close friends and neighbors at the nearby Hidamari Apartments. The manga has been serialized in Houbunsha's monthly magazine Manga Time Kirara Carat since April 2004, with its chapters collected in ten tankōbon volumes as of March 2020. Since 2008, Yen Press has licensed an English translation of the series in North America under the title Sunshine Sketch.