Forum - View topicIs it Really Impossible to Make a Living as an Animator in Japan?
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mdo7
 Posts: 8208 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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Hm, this is an interesting article report to read. Thanks for writing this up. I can't imagine Japanese animators have to put up with such a condition while being paid so little, and I can include this 2023 NY Times article on that.
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2557 Location: Online Terminal |
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Assuming a 40-hour work week, minimum wage would be 2,550,800 yen, so towards the lower end of that range. It's also interesting that the shift within the industry is to basically reestablish animation as a old-fashioned trade-style job, even though there was mention of apprenticeship dying.
How worse of a fate can you have than denying yourself? |
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chronos02
Posts: 294 |
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A thoroughly enjoyable article of a topic affecting the industry since time immemorial, still...
1.55M yen a month for a Japanese is starkly different from what the basic exchange rate told in the article would be for someone living in the US, or the EU if it were in Euro; also, it's incredibly confusing when the writer lists these salaries as monthly and yearly, when we're not even sure how Japan and the individual companies mentioned handle yearly pays, do these include extras such as summer and new years? What's the net income? Are they listed as gross only? And then there's the issue of location, though I believe most of these numbers are taken from the Tokyo Metropolitan area, clarifying that would help to understand how these figures work, as it's not the same to live in a Tokyo flat than it is in Hiroshima or Sapporo. Ranting aside, it's tough to imagine one of the most recognized industries around the world paying such abysmal wages to the actual creators, when the industry itself is making insane amounts. But well, that has been the reality of it for the past what, 30 years now? 40? It's a huge ship to steer for sure, but they have had more than enough time to do this... Looking at the individual salaries, 1.55M yen, if we believe these businesses are giving away seasonal bonusses worth 1 month each, twice a year, this makes 1.55M spread between 14 monthly pays, that's around 110,000 yen a month, which barely provides enough to pay for a flat in Tokyo AND pay for food, AND transportation, let's not even talk about internet, a phone plan, and then the dreaded TAXES. It's honestly not enough, not by a long shot, so these people need to take a secondary job to make ends meet, if they can. I bet a bunch of them have to share a flat for years, until perhaps, at some point, they can get an increase in their income somehow. But well, at least these seem to have it good, they are the numbers for hired animators, but what happens with freelancers? How much do they have to make to make ends meet? Here's where things get complicated, and where people confuse how much a freelancer should be making... listing what they need to do that is usually provided by the business that would usually hire them if they were not freelancers, we get this: - Equipment (PC, chair, tablet, paper, stationery, etc.) - Utilities (water, gas, power, etc.) - Freelancer fee (paid to the gov) (kokumin nenkin?) - Office (can be your own home, but you need a space to work in, taking over your home space) - Software supplies - Job support roles (Accounting, PR, Producer/Coordinator/Manager, etc.) I'm forgetting a lot here, but just with these, not only does the freelancer have less time to "work", but they also incur in additional fees all around... the 2500 yen per cut listed is a bit of an abstract thing, as we don't know how much time it takes for these cuts to be made, though it is clear that 10 cuts is not enough for a single month... so how much should a freelancer be making in these circumstances? With some rough estimates, they should be able to cover costs at around 3050 yen per hour of work, but they need to set aside around 15% for savings (retirement!) out of their income, but should also be able to make a healthy profit, around 25 to 30% above their costs (let's remember, they NEED a cushion in case of a medical leave, no one will pay them during that time, this is a lifeline!), which takes us all the way to 4450 yen per hour of work. Now, to this we must keep in mind a freelancer can't "work" the full length of the day as a normal worker would, they need to take care of PR, accounting, etc, which eats away at their work hours, so the 40 hours per week is ng, they will need at least 1 hour per day to settle with the other stuff, so they can only really work 138 hours every month, rather than 160 (this is for calculation purposes, so "extra" hours are not taken into account, these are usually more costly). So, 138 hours, at 4450 yen per hour, this gives us 614,100 yen a month for a healthy salary, which is far above a hired animator... a new animator simply cannot go as a freelancer in this industry given these circumstances, who would pay them? And let's remember, this is a borderline basic freelancer pricing, equivalent to a new hire! Just for comparison's sake, how many of those cuts would they need to be able to do to reach this level? Well, they'd need to make almost 2 of the cuts every hour, for an entire year... (1.78 to be precise)... is that even humanely possible...? The article cites 10 in a month in some cases, can they turn that into 246 of these I wonder...? (if you're wondering where these numbers come from, they're from my own hourly calculator based on costs, I just took averages in tokyo for affordable rent (100k yen), supplies, etc. freelancer tax (kokumin nenkin I believe), and other things such as amortization for equipment) Pretty bleak, honestly. |
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ZiharkXVI
Posts: 449 |
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What i would be most interested in is a breakdown of the financial challenges compared to other industries. Im not convinced as one other poster claims that the situation is abysmal because I actually dont really have anything to compare it to. If it was so horrific, you lose talent to other, more healthy employment markets. Is there data to suggest the animator market is drying up? That alone I suspect will improve a bad situation because you need to retain animators, so you'll end up paying then more. But if there isnt a shortage of animators, then I question the premise that being an animator is really that bad.
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Tempest
 I Run this place.ANN Publisher  Posts: 10535 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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maximilianjenus
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The article mentions once that this is normal for recent graduates |
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AdamW
 SubscriberPosts: 40 |
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One thing I'm surprised the article didn't cover is offshoring. The credits for most anime these days include a lot of people who clearly aren't Japanese. It'd be interesting to know how that is managed and balanced with the Japanese employees, studios and freelancers.
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pip25
Posts: 268 |
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I am incredibly pleased to hear that the situation for animators is improving. I also hope that with this laudable development in mind, we can finally stop using their situation as an excuse for studios producing releases with unacceptable quality.
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Tempest
I Run this place. ANN Publisher Posts: 10535 Location: Do not message me for support. |
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Although offshoring is a major factor, it wasn't really related to our "are Japanese entry-level animators earning more." It certainly has an impact and it's worth considering doing another article on this, but it would be a full other article. Also, offshoring isn't new at all, the trend goes back, afaik, to the 90s. I know it started in the 80s (or earlier, I'm not sure), but it's been prominent since the late 90s. Ie: in the late 90s, many anime productions mostly offshored their in-betweens. If anything, I think I've heard that off-shoring started to decrease in the 2010s as overseas salaries increased and stopped being as much of a bargain compared to Japanese salaries as they once were. -t |
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