Animation Schools in North America

If you can't live without doing artwork, if you have an overwhelming passion to see the things you draw move, if you just HAVE to do IT, if you are willing to give up everything you own, believe and hold dear in order to make animation then apply to an animation school in your own country. The United States and Canada have very good animation schools. (Mr. Miyazaki gives this advice to every foreigner who goes to interview at Studio Ghibli.)

AWN's Animation School Directory

Also read this Cartooning.about.com article

Note: I get a lot of mail from people wanting to learn how to work in an "anime or manga" art style and much of it asks for information about schools. There are no schools anywhere in the world that teach anime or manga style art. Not even in Japan. The instructors at anime and manga schools in Japan push you to develop your own style, regardless of influence. You may develop an anime art style because the projects you work on are in that style but nobody teaches just the style. There is no one anime style. There is no school of thought or classification system or any serious scholarly work done on the subject. There is no instruction on how to draw eyes or mouths or bodies in an anime style because everybody does it differently. It's something you need to develop yourself from being immersed in it and studying the work of others. You could develop an anime art style at home just by watching enough anime and learning from it. Be aware that working in an anime art style is not a particularly marketable skill by itself. It is very important to be able to animate or illustrate well, much more so than a particular art style. Styles go out of fashion quickly but good draftsmanship is forever.