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INTEREST: JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Character Designer Expresses Disappointment in Anime Industry


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reanimator





PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:18 pm Reply with quote
Nishii Terumi wrote:
In rare cases, older people in the anime industry say, "This is a job you like. Do not complain about running out of money." I think that is a strange thing.


Quote:
The Japan Animation Creators Association's (JAniCA) latest report on the current working conditions of animators revealed that young people continue to face harsher working conditions in the anime industry, even as conditions appear to improve for older people.


It's Gerontocracy at work. Eating the young to sustain the old. It's understandable that older and more experience you get, more money comes. However it has to be balanced so that young people can thrive.
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Lemonchest



Joined: 18 Mar 2015
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:19 pm Reply with quote
Abandon hope all ye who animate here
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Яeverse



Joined: 16 Jun 2014
Posts: 1135
Location: Indianapolis
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:22 pm Reply with quote
Revenue sharing probably needs to be a thing, but then do the original manga creators even get a decent or noticable portion from the animes anyway? I was sure there were some articles that said they dont get much from the anime either.
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kotomikun



Joined: 06 May 2013
Posts: 1205
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:23 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
Nishii's first paycheck was 2,800 yen (US$25). After working for a year her wages increased to 60,000 to 100,000 yen per month (US$535-890).


$25? That's not a paycheck, that's a mediocre gift card.

Beyond the obvious ridiculousness of all this, I have to wonder how this could possibly be sustainable. Surely, sooner or later, these artists are all going to realize they'd be better off working a part-time job (for more money!) and making web animations or something in their spare time... a thing they don't currently have. Unless you eventually climb the ranks at the company, working for such low wages is a waste.

Clearly, the industry needs to make some dramatic changes. If they genuinely can't afford to pay these people more, something about their marketing strategy needs updating. I suspect the root of the problem has to do with making too many shows that appeal to too few people who aren't inclined to buy discs (which are overpriced, because demand is low, and the high price ensures it stays that way), but that's just my armchair analysis. What I'm more certain of is that the industry isn't going to consider changing until it crashes. I just hope it doesn't completely fall apart when that happens.
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Romuska
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Joined: 02 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:31 pm Reply with quote
Sooner or later they're gonna have to unionize. At this point it's literally a matter of life and death.
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luisedgarf



Joined: 02 Oct 2004
Posts: 656
Location: Guadalajara, Mexico
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:43 pm Reply with quote
Well, this is one of the reasons why western animation went from using traditional animation to CGI, as you don't have to deal with all of this. Sad
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Romuska
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Joined: 02 Mar 2004
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:49 pm Reply with quote
luisedgarf wrote:
Well, this is one of the reasons why western animation went from using traditional animation to CGI, as you don't have to deal with all of this. Sad


Sadly CGI folks have similar issues. The producers of Sausage Party came under fire because of claims made by the animators that they weren't paid overtime.
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P-name F



Joined: 14 Feb 2019
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 7:59 pm Reply with quote
I originally trained as a hand-drawn animator and for a while I toyed with the idea of going to work in Japan but the working conditions put me off, and this was long before all these stories started coming out about the insane amount of hours and pathetically meager pay.

On the surface, Japan appears to be a haven for creatives wishing to try their luck in the industry (be it anime, video games, designers etc) but its work ethic is simply not viable for a lot of people, especially the newcomers who are forced to 'take it or leave it' because they have no influence. The sad thing is that a lot of the people who work in these industries do so because they have great affection for it and go in wanting to contribute but end up worked to the bone and for very little money. Of course this isn't exclusive to Japan, you'll hear some similar horror stories of video game employees in the US, Europe, UK etc but thanks to Japan's notorious work culture, it's easy to see it as the worst offender.

Honestly I feel as though the Japanese anime industry is a bubble that's about to burst given the condition of the workers. They'll probably still be able to get wide-eyed newbies and outsource but sooner or later there's going to be a crash. Reforms are desperately needed but the economics will easily make producers balk, especially as it will likely make China seem a lot more attractive in terms of animation production. But if they don't reform so that the work is economically viable for the staff then they're going to lose business to the Chinese studios anyway because these staff simply cannot keep going this way. And as advanced as computer programs are getting at cleaning up images, scanning and creating inbetweens, you still need human animators to create all these shots and give the key motions and design the images you see in a blink of an eye. And unlike computers, they're not so easy to replace, even if there may seem to be enough of them.

Moral of the story: kids, study dentistry instead.
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P-name F



Joined: 14 Feb 2019
Posts: 5
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 8:03 pm Reply with quote
luisedgarf wrote:
Well, this is one of the reasons why western animation went from using traditional animation to CGI, as you don't have to deal with all of this. Sad


Someone still needs to direct the model, arrange the perfect composition, make sure the frame rate looks good etc. CGI is a different process but it still requires human creativity and quality control. A computer is essentially a fine piano: useless without someone to play it.
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luisedgarf



Joined: 02 Oct 2004
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Location: Guadalajara, Mexico
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 8:14 pm Reply with quote
P-name F wrote:
luisedgarf wrote:
Well, this is one of the reasons why western animation went from using traditional animation to CGI, as you don't have to deal with all of this. Sad


Someone still needs to direct the model, arrange the perfect composition, make sure the frame rate looks good etc. CGI is a different process but it still requires human creativity and quality control. A computer is essentially a fine piano: useless without someone to play it.


I already know that. I was trying to be sarcastic, hence the emoji.
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Idgal



Joined: 18 Jun 2015
Posts: 169
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 9:54 pm Reply with quote
with the need of paying Japanese Animators a living wage, soon all animation will be out source to China or other low pay Asian countries.

I predict in another 10 years, Japanese animators will be a dying job, due to rise of China as huge market for anime and they have cheap labor.

quality of anime will be low and censored due to what topics are allowed to be shown in China
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H. Guderian



Joined: 29 Jan 2014
Posts: 1255
PostPosted: Mon Apr 22, 2019 11:14 pm Reply with quote
Which is why we need fewer shows. Every time the Industry gets money these practices get applied over and over again for the greatest return - starting a brand new show to scrape the razor margin of a niche sub-group that'll always buy said titles. This is why people were upset when Crunchyroll always said that your subscription went to support the industry, then they turn around and add their own shows to the mix - exacerbating the problem.

I for one think the market needs to crash, so we can have fewer studios making fewer projects so money can concentrate into those that do good work.

Ask any fan of anime. No one can keep up. I want to give money to the industry, but even those of us who pay those crazy "Collector's/Premium" box prices are exhausted.

And if the fandom itself fractures too much further then the identity of Anime Fan will diminish and then make the problem even worse. Imagine if "Console Wars" started to come to Anime? Sub vs Dub at least still supported the same content.
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Scion Drake



Joined: 25 Nov 2017
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 12:57 am Reply with quote
Damn this is sad. Never going into this occupation, that’s for sure.
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MarshalBanana



Joined: 31 Aug 2014
Posts: 5296
PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 2:21 am Reply with quote
Idgal wrote:
with the need of paying Japanese Animators a living wage, soon all animation will be out source to China or other low pay Asian countries.

I predict in another 10 years, Japanese animators will be a dying job, due to rise of China as huge market for anime and they have cheap labor.
Low wages make it cheaper to animate in Japan vs China, and China already has a blossoming animation industry, as time goes on they will be less and less interested in doing outsourcing and focus more on domestic titles.


Last edited by MarshalBanana on Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:12 am; edited 1 time in total
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AiddonValentine



Joined: 07 Aug 2006
Posts: 2201
PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:15 am Reply with quote
Yeah, serious changes need to happen as this cannot keep going.
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