The harsh working conditions of animators
They work in environments where animators can work 7 days a week drawing 200 key frames and only get paid a minute amount of money each month, and on top of that have no job security or retirement fund. Despite being well known for its anime, Japan has not been treating its animators well.
Mainichi news reports that Animators have come together to form the Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) in an attempt to improve working conditions and improve the situation where animators are leaving the industry.
JAniCA was set up by Ashida Toyoo, chairman of Studio Live, and currently has approximately 500 members. Ashida says that there is a slow but sure increase in the lack of people working in the animation industry in Japan, and if this goes on, the industry of animation creators within Japan would crash.
Interviews with people in the industry have also revealed the bad conditions of people working in the animation industry, such as somebody who have left her normal job to become an animator and works 12 hours a day, but only earns half of what she used to make, with no overtime pay or health insurance. And somebody who used to live on his own before changing jobs to become an animator, and soon could no longer afford rent and had to return to live with his parents. Somebody who doesn’t even go to see a doctor when sick unless it gets really bad because it costs money.
There are even some animators from the 70s who are now receiving public assistance or are even homeless.
Via: Mainichi
Anime episodes usually cost between 1 to 2 million yen (8,500~17,000 USD) to make each episode, which costs only a fraction compared to the already famously low budget Japanese TV dramas. This situation was reflected earlier in the week when AIC’s private documents were leaked and revealed the breakdown of the 1 million yen budget for each episode, revealing that key frame and layout artists only get paid 2,000 yen for each cut. (each cut usually has 10+ keyframes, so 200 keyframes means the animator gets 30,000~40,000 yen)
October 12th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Wow! That’s very interesting. Especially interesting is that anime typically costs 1-2 million yen per episode, while American animation typically costs 1-2 million DOLLARS per episode, even though most American animation is done in South Korea.
October 12th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
“Especially interesting is that anime typically costs 1-2 million yen per episode, while American animation typically costs 1-2 million DOLLARS per episode, even though most American animation is done in South Korea.”
That’s why all the decent/good Korean animation studios vastly prefer doing work for American projects :/
The Japanese animation system is very trained on making the most out of the least - that’s why a “limited” animation style developed where they use only a few frames but change the framerate and use extreme posing to give the impression of unusual motion.
But it’s really too harsh working as an animator there and it’s very worrying if there’s no young blood that’ll come in and create good works in the future…
October 12th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
“That’s it, my slaves! Work harder, faster, and cater the masses of otaku blobs who foolishly think that Haruhi is their God!”
Heheh…
Using the old Bandai Entertainment USA mantra when it came to Gundam: It’s not a matter of “if,” but “when.”
October 12th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
thats why I never wanted to be a japanese animator
October 13th, 2007 at 2:41 am
‘Its better to watch stuff than to do stuff’ mantra applies.
October 13th, 2007 at 10:27 am
I have written something similar on my Deviant Art site about JANICA.
http://chibizaki.deviantart.com/journal/13343919/
I recommend converting the yen to US dollars for a greater impact. Most people don’t know that 1 yen is roughly the equivalent of 1 cent (give or take).
October 13th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Anime episodes usually cost between 1 to 2 million yen (8,500~17,000 USD)
There indeed was a conversion to USD. Sorry my bad.
October 15th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Who cares about their conditions? Someone will still do it and we’ll still get our shows.
October 16th, 2007 at 4:02 am
so sad T_T
they are working for their passion >_>
so probably it was the pushing force to continue working..
@Anonymous:
probably someday no1 will do the jap animation anymore..
if every1 had the same attitude as u do.
why dun they start a funding..etc. >_>
i feel so bad..when i think back on my anime downloading activites >_
April 8th, 2008 at 8:13 pm
wow i feel really sad cause i want to be an animator…..damn_._
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:29 am
This is sad. When artists are under appreciated, this is never a good thing. They need as much support as possible. Lets not take animation for granted y’all there are a lot of good soldiers out there sticking their necks out to give us some legendary work.