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INTEREST: American Animator in Japan Offers His Take on the Industry's Wages and Work Environment

I don't want to overstate but things like Steven Universe (for kids) and Rick & Morty or Venture Bros. (for adults) are branching out a little from comedy, even if they're classified as such and do have plenty of comic content.

It's more that any attempt at making a non-comedic animated production aimed at adults falls flat on its face,
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That they keep getting made means the problem is more due to culture and perception of animation as being either kids stuff or toilet humor for adults than the people actually making and greenlighting the programming.
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In short, western animation does repeatedly try to branch out and do something different, but most of the time, the viewers say no.

And people get a little more insight into why I find anime a lot more distasteful than I used to. It's why I really hate the production committee, uncompromising deadline oriented, commercialism fixated model the current industry follows. Not only does it stifle any sort of the creativity that saw anime's rise to prominence as a culturally significant and distinct format and style of expression for pretty much solely commercial endeavors, sometimes it's hard to accept what is quite often just a bunch of producers and robber barons making money off of the passion, interest and hard work of others while giving them empty wish fulfillment dreams and failing to train the next generation of creators and nurture there talents in any significant way. There's a lot that's really wrong with the current structure and outlook of anime and in many ways it just kills the enjoyment of it all.

"In any country other than Japan, animators are on the regular payroll as full employees, with full salary and benefits. It used to be that way in Japan, too... But ever since Tezuka Osamu employed what could be called an 'abnormal' work system to produce Tetsuwan Atom (1963), animator salaries have collapsed, the animators were demoted from full employees to contractors, and they became poorer in the process. Animators have a special set of skills; they are craftsmen. So why are the salaries of these crafstmen on par with what you would pay a high-school kid working at a convenience store? Animators in other countres aren't poor. In America and Europe, they are paid according to their skills. Japanese animators should be paid based on the Labor Standards Act in a manner commesurate with their skills. And if you ask me, Japan deserves to lose its poor animators, so it can only have ten anime a week instead of the hundred or so currently produced. Even TEN a week is a lot by European or American standards!"

If the average citizen knew that the animators who support the highly respected art of 'Japanimation' were forced to live in extreme poverty at 50,000 yen a month ($500), television stations, advertising agencies, and publishers would be forced to change the way they do business, and animators.... would be hired as full employees and have stable lifestyles. ....Animators in their 20s and 30s are quitting in droves."

Japanimation' may have been raised to divine status as a medium but the animators labor under conditions worse than those faced by slaves prior to the Civil War.

Twenty years ago, an animator's salary was 25,000 yen... Now a new "in-betweener" gets paid about 30,000 yen. Animators and colorists basically work on a commission. A key animator gets paid by the cut; an in-betweener by the cel drawn; a colorist by the cel painted... Low compensation, long hours, no overtime, no pension, no insurance, and no days off are the norm. This is a total violation of the Labor Standards Act. We Japanese are attempting to sell ourselves as having a cutting edge content production industry, but that's nonsense spouted by people who don't know the workplace.

The Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) have set itself up as an unlimited liability intermediary corporation this week to continue its efforts in improving work conditions in the Japanese animation industry. JAniCA was established last October to address the long working hours and low wages of many animators and directors. Becoming a legal corporation was necessary to hold negotiations with the national government and related entities, as well as to receive financial support. Eventually, JAniCA plans to become a general corporation.

90% of the animators and directors are freelancers, and those who have trouble making ends meet are expected to face increasing hardships as they grow older. In particular, there are veteran creators in their 40s and 50s who are getting by on 3 million yen (about US$30,000) a year. JAniCA plans to survey the current living conditions of animators for a database in this field of study, and to push initiatives to raise the quality of anime as well.