Comments on: Japanese Animators Poor Working Conditions

By: tragic comedy

tragic comedy — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:21:21 +0000

sadly this is the state of animation all over asia as it is a very drastic cost cutting measure…

By: Tiny Red Man

Tiny Red Man — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:44:14 +0000

i read bout it before from riuva’s link..

And it was all thanks to the creator of astro boy. He set the trend for shitty working conditions and lousy pay. As the production of 1 episode of anime is already quite high, the production house has to cut money. sending in-betweens to china/korea is cheap but quality might not be there(see “welcome to nhk”)..The next thing they cut: animator’s salary.

As there are 3 different levels of animators in japan, the lowest class(clean up “artists”) gets the lowest pay (they count by per piece..100 yen or so..). The highest class of animators would be the keyframers. they think of the animations and draft them out on the paper. after animating the main impt keyframes, the job is passed down to in betweeners (whose pay is in between the highest and lowest class)..and then it’s the mentioned clean up artists..

it was even reported that the producers get an unknown but high pay. as in the person who thought up of the story and character designs..etc..

i think odex xysing briefly mentioned it before..which lead to the current hunt.

By: Alafista

Alafista — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 12:49:13 +0000

@ Endz: Yeah I would think so.

Here’s the stats from the Daily Yomiuri Survey in 2005:
26.8% earn less than 1 million yen (US$8,500 approx.) annually, 19.6% earn between 1 million yen and 2 million yen (US$17,000 approx.) annually, 18.6% earn between 2 million yen and 3 million yen (US$25,700 approx.) annually. 65% of Japanese animators earn less than 3 million yen annually.

By: Endz

Endz — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 08:11:59 +0000

is that 50k yen monthly?

By: tj han

tj han — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 07:20:45 +0000

http://www.riuva.com/?p=111

One of my earlier posts, where I basically compiled info on this.

By: griever

griever — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 06:38:24 +0000

ANN had something on their salaries…

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2005-11-02/animatorâ€™s-salaries

I hope the union can get better salaries for them.

By: Mike

Mike — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 06:31:45 +0000

AFAIK, the outsourcing of in-between work has already happened and has happened for a long time now. It’s one of the main reasons why South Korea has such a thriving indigenous animation and manhwa industry of their own now. Favorite outsourcing locations now are China and the Philippines; it’s why you see so many Chinese names (in Romanized letters, for some reason) in so many credit sequences nowadays.

By: Alafista

Alafista — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 06:24:46 +0000

@Mike: Seems like the situation is not limited to only animators. I wonder this is the same for alot of other creative jobs.

@ Amgine: I wonder if anime can be outsourced to cheaper countries since the art style of Japanese anime are pretty unique.

@DS: I think if i have a monthly pay of 50,000 yen (400 USD), I would cry like the girl too. =P

By: DS

DS — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:58:52 +0000

I feel for the Japanese animators. I was also captivated by that image you used. That girl is very cute. Is crying because she is concerned about the animator’s poor working conditions? If only we could all comfort her

By: Amgine

Amgine — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 05:49:54 +0000

Except nowadays and more often, businesses run like this. If you don’t like the way they work, they can just fire you and outsource to some other country for cheaper prices and no more complaints.