When Massimo Carrier Ragazzi founded Maga in 1996, CG was still a pioneeringdiscipline. Professional workstations were prohibitively expensive, the Internet was in its infancy, and many of the tools that are now part of everyday production had yet to be invented. Launching a studio specialising in computer graphics meant taking a considerable entrepreneurial risk in an industry that was only beginning to reveal its potential. It was in this context that a studio took shape in Milan around a simple yet ambitious vision: to put art, technology and experimentation at the service of storytelling.
Over the next thirty years, that vision would guide the studio through some of the most significant transformations in the creative industry: from the emergence of digital animation to the rise of international television series, from the establishment of video games as a narrative medium to the advent of real-time production and new forms of convergence between animation, music and digital media.
Later relocating to Monza, the studio progressively expanded its international reach, collaborating with some of the world’s leading names in entertainment, including Disney, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Sanrio, Netflix and Amazon. Along the way, Maga has brought Made in Italy creativity, expertise and vision to productions created for audiences around the world.
From its pioneering beginnings in Italian computer graphics, the studio has evolved alongside some of the most significant transformations in the international creative industry, building a portfolio that ranges from animated series and video games to advertising and original intellectual properties.
Over the years, Maga Animation Studio has created productions spanning generations and creative languages: from collaborations with major figures in the history of Italian animation such as Bruno Bozzetto and Guido Manuli, to television series including PsicoVipTM, Acqua in Bocca, Ricky Zoom, Lupin’s Tales, Hello Kitty Super Style! and Mr. Men Little Miss Mini Adventures; from cinematics and trailers for video games, including Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Soulstice, On Your Tail and Terminator Survivors, to more recent original projects such as NORA ノラ, Italy’s first virtual idol, bringing together music, animation and digital storytelling.
Alongside its production work, the studio has maintained a constant commitment to research and experimentation, helping establish it as a reference point within the Italian CGI landscape. This drive for innovation has accompanied every stage of its history, from its earliest productions created on Silicon Graphics workstations to the modern real-time pipelines used for video games, animated series and cross-media content
Over the years, Maga Animation’s productions have received numerous international awards and accolades. Among the most significant are several Gold Promax Awards for productions created for Disney Channel, and the selection of The GoGoPig at the Annecy Festival, marking important recognition for the studio’s original content as well.
Series and co-productions have also received international awards, including Best Preschool TV Series at Cartoons on the Bay for Lupin’s Tales and Best Web Series at the New York Shorts Awards for Sanrio’s Mr. Men Little Miss Mini Adventures, alongside the more recent recognition received by NORA ノラ on the international music video scene.
Maga Animation’s history is, above all, the history of the people who have been part of it: artists, animators, directors, storytellers, designers, programmers, composers, producers and collaborators who have helped build a creative studio in constant evolution. Over the years, Maga has also become a genuine creative training ground for professionals who have gone on to work at some of the industry’s leading international companies, from Industrial Light & Magic and Framestore to Sony and many other major names in animation and visual effects.
For Massimo, the meaning of these thirty years extends far beyond the technological evolution the studio has witnessed. What has always mattered is not the tools themselves, but how they are used:
Thirty years is long enough to watch the future change shape more than once. When we started, many of the technologies that are now commonplace and indispensable did not yet exist. And yet the question that has stayed with us ever since has remained surprisingly simple: what makes a creative work truly meaningful? The answer, of course, is not found in the tools alone, but in the intentions behind them. In the ability to look at the world with curiosity and transform that experience into something that can be shared. That is why I believe the greatest challenge is not to chase every innovation, but to understand it, explore it and preserve what makes creativity human. Everything else is simply the means through which that spark finds a form. And perhaps that is precisely where the magic lies: in the meeting of imagination, talent and the desire to explore what does not yet exist. It is this energy, this drive towards what comes next, that turns every milestone into a new beginning, with the same passion, joy and desire to build that I had when I was twenty.
For Raffaella Calvino Prina, the studio’s creative director since its early years:
“Summing up in just a few words what the journey of Maga Animation Studio has meant to me over these thirty years is difficult. It is one of my lives, perhaps the longest and the most complex. If I had to distil it all into one thought, I think the greatest satisfaction is having managed to build a place where so many lives have crossed paths. Those synergies gave rise to wonderful projects that will remain forever.”
Today, at a time when technological evolution is raising new questions about the relationship between human creativity and automation, Maga Animation Studio continues to look ahead with the same spirit that shaped its beginnings: curiosity, experimentation and the desire to explore new forms of expression. Because the magic of creation does not belong to software, machines or algorithms. It belongs to the people who turn ideas into images, and images into stories.
In an industry that continually reinvents itself, reaching the thirty-year milestone is not a destination, but a reaffirmation of a way of working. To keep people at the centre. To keep exploring. To keep imagining what does not yet exist and looking ahead to a new future still waiting to be invented.
