Ryo Ono, known professionally as Frogman, is a writer, character designer, animator, voice actor, and director who rose to prominence by proving that you don't need a full studio backing to create compelling animation. His best-known work, the Flash-animated comedy Himitsu Kessha Taka no Tsume (Eagle Talon Secret Society), started as a web series and became such a hit in Japan that it eventually landed him TV deals, movie offers, and merchandise opportunities.

What set Frogman apart was his unorthodox approach. While most Japanese animation aims for meticulous, realistic movement, he used Adobe Flash—software originally designed for web pages—to create something deliberately minimal. His characters only move horizontally and barely change their facial expressions. This constraint didn't hold him back; if anything, it freed him. He could produce a five-minute short in about a week with virtually no overhead.

In 2004, Ono uploaded his first sample, a five-minute piece called "Sguy & The Family Stone" (a nod to the 1960s funk-rock band). It spread entirely by word of mouth. Riding that momentum, he moved back to Tokyo to develop a pair of series: Coffy the Tomb Tyke, a romantic comedy starring ancient Japanese tomb characters, and The Eagle Talon Secret Society, a satirical comedy about the villainous Eagle Talon organization. TV Asahi ran both for three months in 2006.

His work thrives on comedy with satirical bite. In that same year, his short series Kaeruotoko Gekijo (The Frogman Theater), which satirized Japanese politics, aired on the TBS news program NEWS23.