Poor salary and working conditions for animators in Japan

[theraiden]

I came across this interesting article:

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/7/2/20677237/anime-industry-japan-artists-pay-labor-abuse-neon-genesis-evangelion-netflix

It's terrible how anime animator's are treated and all for a measly salary.
I wish there was a way to support them directly for the work they do, like through donations or something like that

[Seto Kaiba]

Anime News Network has had a number of articles about that particular topic over the years...

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-05-15/study-animators-earned-usd28000-on-average-in-japan-in-2013/.87762

 

The sad reality of the situation is that anime isn't actually a profitable medium to work in.  Studios operate on razor thin margins, entirely dependent on the profits from merchandising to have any realistic hope of turning a profit on the shows they produce.  It can take studios months or years to break even on the majority shows they produce that don't become hits via reruns, streaming, back catalog home video sales, merchandise, and foreign licensing for all of the above.  Many poorly-performing properties never manage to break even.  Those studios stay afloat on the profits from the occasional hit series while they wait for the rest of their body of work to start turning a profit (if it ever does).  The long hours and low wages for production staff are one of the ways studios try to keep production costs down to avoid pricing themselves out of the market.  Outsourcing the more labor-intensive parts of their production process to studios in South Korea is another method.  Your typical TV anime's per-episode budget is about on par with an American deep cable show's, despite the MUCH larger manpower and man-hour requirement to produce an episode.

That anime is gradually gaining a foothold in markets outside of Japan may start to help the wage situation, but it'll probably be quite a few years yet before it becomes mainstream enough to effect meaningful change in the industry... if ever.

[TangledThorns]

Not surprised. It seems like every job in Japan wants to work you to death.

[tekering]

I spent a year in Japan on a Working Holiday visa, teaching English while honing my Japanese communication skills.  Having met Mamoru Oshii, I interviewed for a job at Production I.G. in Kokubunji.  They understood my passion for anime, but thought I was crazy for wanting to work there.

"But, you're an English teacher!  Why would you want to be an animator?"

After discussing salary, benefits, and working conditions, I had to agree with them.  Despite working less than half as many hours as they do, my salary is twice what they make!  

7 hours ago, theraiden said:

I wish there was a way to support them directly for the work they do, like through donations or something like that

Actually, there is.

https://gogetfunding.com/new-anime-making-system-project/

[AN/ALQ128]

Its been an issue for as long as anime as we know it has existed.

Anime is an industry that grew on being the cheap alternative to live action.

 

 

[renegadeleader1]

Yeah Hideaki Anno was complaining about this as far back as 1996.

[Seto Kaiba]

7 hours ago, renegadeleader1 said:

Yeah Hideaki Anno was complaining about this as far back as 1996.

Macross's creators were complaining about it back in '82... it's part of why Tatsunoko ended up involved in production.  Big West wasn't confident in Macross's prospects due to it being their first foray in animation sponsorship and gave it a really tiny budget that wasn't even adequate to produce the planned 27 episode run they'd cut it down to (from 49), so they had to get Tatsunoko involved in it and pay them with part of the rights to the show to get it completed.

Tomino was complaining about it back in '79 when he had people working monstrous amounts of overtime to get Mobile Suit Gundam done on time, for very little pay, with staff being forced to double or triple up on roles.  Tomino himself ended up drawing key animation for at least one episode because of it.

I'm sure Matsumoto was grumbling loudly about it in '74 when they were working on Space Battleship Yamato, and many creators before that for as long as anime has been a thing.  The very art style comes out of decisions made to keep production costs as low as possible.

[Lexomatic]

On 7/2/2019 at 2:18 PM, theraiden said:

I wish there was a way to support [Japanese animators] directly for the work they do, like through donations or something like that

On 7/2/2019 at 9:58 PM, tekering said:

Actually, there is. https://gogetfunding.com/new-anime-making-system-project/

<skims the proposal> Interesting. The crowdfunding model was successful for Bee and PuppyCat by Natasha Allegri (an alum of Adventure Time) (Kickstarter from 2013 hey wait that was six years ago yikes) with a target budget of $100,000 per episode, each 5 to 10 minutes. Has it been successful for anything else? There's a TV Tropes page for Kickstarter, listing ... lessee ... new seasons of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (oh, right), Reading Rainbow, English dubs for Vision of Escaflowne and Wakfu ... but a market analysis also requires: how often has the model failed?

On 7/2/2019 at 3:03 PM, Seto Kaiba said:

Anime News Network has had a number of articles about that particular topic over the years...

Indeed. The Answerman columns are what I usually cite when somebody newly discovers this dirty truth of the Japanese animation industry.

On 7/3/2019 at 9:50 AM, Seto Kaiba said:

I'm sure Matsumoto was grumbling loudly about it in '74 when they were working on Space Battleship Yamato

That species of complaint would probably be from producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki. This might be addressed on fan site Cosmo DNA, which is a tremendous resource of translated vintage news coverage, but difficult to search for specific questions.