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MAPPA Comments on Animator Pay Rates in Statement

MAPPA released a statement on Wednesday afternoon to address recent discussions about one of the company's as-yet "unannounced productions," saying that information has been shared and discussed in ways that "invite misunderstanding."

MAPPA claimed that it has never offered unreasonable compensation to "creators" (a term used in this context to refer to an anime's creative staff, including animators), but offered rates that are fair relative to the budget of the project, whether in current or past projects. It also claimed that it has never forced or coerced creators to work.

Animator Ippei Ichii asserted earlier this month that MAPPA was offering severely low rates for animators in the company working on a Netflix anime, with a MAPPA producer supposedly offering 3,800 yen (US$34) per cut. Ichii laid the blame on Netflix for such low rates, saying that "For all the exorbitant amount of capital [of Netflix], it's a problem that they've started to place orders with such low rates. There is a possibility that the prices are even lower than a TV series." Ichii noted that the unit price per cut for television animation tends to be at 3,800 to 7,000 yen.

However, MAPPA said in its statement on Wednesday that the anime was not a project ordered by a "major platform," but the latest work in an existing TV series, and one which it was already planning. MAPPA offered the upcoming anime for distribution to a "major platform," with production beginning after the sale price and then the budget of the show was finalized.

In May, a freelance animator tweeted that they left MAPPA due to the "factory-like" conditions. They criticized MAPPA's decision to work on four shows at the same time instead of properly training its team so that such corrections wouldn't be necessary, and said, "As far as I can tell, about 80% of the employees had similar complaints at the time."

Images of MAPPA's new "Studio Annex" building were publicly released on the architecture media site Architecture Photo on Monday. According to the architects, the desk materials and the open space of the lounge were designed with "the intention to improve the workplace environment."

The Chainsaw Man anime is currently being produced in the new building.

Ichii recently worked as an animation director on MAPPA's Zombie Land Saga Revenge.

Source: MAPPA