Underpaid and Overworked: Being an Animator in Japan | THE VOICELESS #23
Video Statistics and Information
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Channel: Asian Boss
Views: 2,618,318
Rating: 4.9763565 out of 5
Keywords: naruto, asian, japan, japanese, animator art, manga, work, underpaid, overworked characters, Animator, Japan, Japan Anime, Japanese animator, anime, anime industry, animation, Working as an animator, animator in japan, AsianBoss, Asian Boss, stay curious, boruto, nerd, otaku, akihabara, cgi, underpaid animator, animator salary, animator pay, animation industry, japanese anime industry
Id: Tvj-XnVKQI8
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 15min 13sec (913 seconds)
Published: Mon Oct 14 2019
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She mentioned Boruto and Vinland. That's Pierrot and WIT. Both are particular bad about the treatment of their animators.
She seems so tired yet she’s willing to give her all for her work with no reward... that takes a really strong will
Japan needs to have laws regarding overworking as well pay.
Getting paid around $550 per month and working 65 hours per week works about to be $2 an hour...
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This was a great video that missed a few things, which I think was mostly on the host/production team not understanding a few concepts of how the anime industry operates and treating it like a normal Japanese business.
Animators (for the most part) are not employees of a studio. Nakamura did say she 'worked' somewhere, but that was likely an internship program at an anime studio which, for the most part, are either unpaid, or very low paying, with very little long term employment prospects. The host asked why they can be paid so little, and that's because Nakamura isn't employeed anywhere, she's a contractor, which don't have the same rights as full time (or part time staff). This is also a big problem in the eikawa (english teaching) industry where people are forced into contract positions, abet under different circumstances.
So the question is, how do we fix it? We can't from the outside. Either change has to come from the inside (like Kyoto Animation paying all their staff full wages, same with Studio Ghibli), or loopholes in the law has to change (which won't under the current government) and enforced. Or hell, start a union of animators to demand higher wages.
This might mean less output, but we have studies showing that less stressed people produce better work.
Also, because Nakamura is freelance, she can work for any studio, so it's less "companies helping each other" and just getting contracts from different places, though subcontracting is a thing (I.E. one studio (like OLM) subcontract another studio (like Cockpit) to animate certain cuts or episodes). This is showcased in Shirobako.
One thing that was both interesting and a bit sad to me was how she expressed that she wished the top talented animators had their pay increased instead of wishing her own pay was increased. Her reasoning of not only because they're talented and deserve higher pay, but also because it gives the lower animators hope that they can reach that point one way is very interesting to me, that she wants the hope that it gets better in the future rather than it getting better now
I heard that Kyoani treats their animators much better
Many very interesting things in the interview actualy. From explaining the basic animation process ,to how the industry works, to how long it takes for a cut and the average payment to some other facts about the industry. And of course as always, the horrible conditions,low pay and overwork.
I would love to see what cuts she did in Vinland Saga. I would hope for things to get better for her but without somekind of labor movement among animators or a change in goverment policy towards studios ,committees and the insane practices in the industry (Abe doesnt seem to give much of a shit) i doupt it. Or the industry will implode and will have to rebuild its stucture from the ground up