Mohd Nizam Abdul Razak, CEO of Malaysian animation studio Monsta, opens up about being a kid at heart and finding creative inspiration in everyday objects
Robots with the power to transform everyday objects into high-tech gadgets and teenagers with the power of the elements to fight evil—these are some of the imaginative characters dreamed up by Mohd Nizam Abdul Razak of Malaysia-based animation studio Monsta for his shows. Monsta is behind several popular animated superhero TV series and movie including BoBoiBoy and Mechamato.
A passionate storyteller, Nizam is a kid at heart who, as CEO, is just as much responsible for strategising the company’s business decisions as he is for directing its creative approach. Oftentimes, he writes scripts and develops storylines with his team. In the second BoBoiBoy movie released in 2019, he even voiced the character of Papa Zola, one of the series’ main protagonists.
In 2022, when Monsta released its next series, Mechamato. The movie was a massive hit in theatres, earning RM35 million at the box office and making it Malaysia’s all-time highest-grossing local animated film.
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The studio is also seeing success outside of Malaysia. In October 2023, its Mechamato series began airing on Japanese television, with the movie set to be shown in local theatres in 2024. Merchandise of the series are also being sold across e-commerce platforms and retail stores in Japan.
The second season of the studio’s BoBoiBoy Galaxy series is also being shown across Asia through multiple platforms, including Netflix in Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea.
In his own words here, Nizam shares more about creating endearing and enduring tales that appeal to audiences of different ages, and the name of his next animated series.
We saw a need for Malaysian children to have their own superheroes to admire. So we founded Monsta in 2009 and envisioned a superhero who was also a kid, balancing school and family pressures while fighting evil.
We launched our first original intellectual property (IP), BoBoiBoy, in 2011 after three years of development. The animated series features an 11-year-old boy named BoBoiBoy, who acquires elemental superpowers and forms a superhero team with his friends to protect Earth from alien threats.
Our second original IP, Mechamato, was released in 2022. It focuses on the adventures of a boy named Amato, who discovers a robot named MechaBot that can turn everyday objects into high-tech devices. The concept for the show came to me while I was in the middle of moving houses. My children were playing with cardboard boxes and imagined them being tanks and other fantastical objects. That reminded me of my childhood when I would do the same—play with everyday objects and use my imagination. So I thought, why not extend this idea to [the series]?
Our animators need to be kids at heart. They need to be able to imagine and understand the characters very well.