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Japanese Anime Industry In Danger Of Fragmentation
ChibiOne writes "The Asahi Shinbun has a story about the critical state that the Japanese animation industry currently faces, claiming: 'As merchandisers grow rich, the animation industry is losing jobs to cheaper labor abroad.' The article quotes Oh Production President Koichi Murata as saying: 'Unless something is done, Japanese anime will be ruined.' An animator, toiling away on cels in a tiny Tokyo studio, might be fortunate to pull in just 50,000 yen [about $500 USD] a month."
50,000.00 JPY = 451.859 USD, about 5422.30 USD per year
per capita GDP is $28,700 (2002 est.)
factbook on japan
Matsumoto said one U.S. toy manufacturer offered his company about $10 million (about 1.1 billion yen) for the rights to market merchandise featuring the characters of an animated cartoon his company hadn't even completed. The figure was particularly eye-popping for Matsumoto because it was 100 times what animated films earn on average from broadcasting rights in Japan. - One has to wonder why their aren't any regulations regarding corperate responsibility and minimun wage laws on this matter.
Not India, but most certain South Korea. Quite a great deal of Japanese animation is done in Korea; though many North Americans would like to think that anime is strictly from Japan. High profile projects such as Macross Zero, Naruto, amongst many others have benefit from foreign collaborations.
In fact, many of the smaller animation studios must look for partners internationally due to limited local resources, lack of funding, tight schedules, and a host of other issues.
Even the high budget North American fare uses animation studios in Korea; as many already know, the Simpson's is animated in South Korea.
I saw a program about this on Japanese TV not so long ago.
The main problems with outsourcing animation is that the Koreans and Filipinos doing the animations are going to get better in these industries and create more competition for the Japanese animators themselves later on.
Even though this is the case, from what I've seen from Japanese schoolchildren with no formal art training in comic animation, there's no danger of Japan running out of creative talent.
READY.
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Actually, much of it is going to Korea I would guess (the southern half).
This is not really anything unusual, the 'Simpsons' has been drawn in korea for quite a long time now.
And anyone who thinks South Korean is some kind of 3rd world low-wage country wants to go and try and live there! Seoul is the most expensive citys in the world to visit according to at least one study.
I guess they just do a good job for a resonable fee.
International competition is just part of the reality now, and if someone else does the job with a better price/performance, while meeting the requirements, then the work will (and probably should) move.
Of course, I'm making the mistake of a serious reply to an obvious troll, but why not.
Where the hell can you live in Japan on 50K yen a month? Looks like the spare room in Mum & Dad's pad for the ol' Japanese animator.
Then you haven't seen Lain, FLCL, Spirited Away, Cowboy Bebop, or any number of other series I could name.
Half of those were not made after 1998. Lain and Cowboy Bebop were 1998. FLCL was 2000, and Spirited Away (which I didn't particularly like) was 2001.
I disagree that there are no decent anime being made (in any of a number of various genres from serious drama to silly comedy), but, just like any other medium (television, film, stage), the good stuff only comes along every once in awhile. Anime is not a genre; it's a medium. The medium has certain common styles whose popularity come and go (although not all works have those common styles), but then so do stage musicals.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Seoul is more technologically advanced than any US city, kind of like a more traditional Tokyo.
It's not really that expensive - many daily things like eating out at restaurants, cell phone bills, internet (I get 50Mbps for $US30 a month), taxis, subway are cheap.
Accomodation is expensive only because they have the "key money" deposit system where you give a landlord $50,000-$150,000 to live rent free for 2 years, after which time they give you all of that money back again (with no interest). There is a hybrid system with a reduced deposit amount ($15K->$80K) and a low monthly rent. But if you've got some cash you don't mind tying up for a while, it's very cheap.
Korea is beginning to feel the outsourcing pinch from its neighbours, notibly China - where they're beginning to make things for cheaper than the Koreans can at comparable quality.
Seth makes a comment about how the bible that appears at the end of the episode is 'backwards' - that is, it reads right to left - apparently because "the show is animated in South Korea".
Unfortunately it's just American writers' ignorance - Korean is read left to right and (unlike in Japan) the books have the spine on the same side as we're used to.
Isn't it strange that the article spends a lot of time bemoaning the plight of the cel painter? Cel's are obsolete in modern anime, only a few companies (extremely cheap ones and Studio Ghibli) still use them. Almost all companies do their coloring on computer these days. It's possible they just kept the old terms for whatever reason, but somehow I wonder if this article isn't similar to one bemoaning the number of buggy whip manufactuerers going "overseas".
I read the internet for the articles.
so don't watch CN. the stuff CN shows appeals to the majority of their audience. that's what people watch, so that's what they show.
as another post mentions, Noir is a good adult show. some others from my collection:
there are Anime for every genre, and some that cover so many genres that they can't be called anything but unique. Ranma 1/2, for example (by the same lady that brought us Inu Yasha), is what i call an "action drama romantic comedy". there's a lot of nudity in it, but the pure wittiness of it brings no end to the fun. (what's not funny about a boy that turns into a girl when wet and has to deal with a dozen people that literally both love and hate him? it's a love polygon so complex it would give soap opera directors brain hemorrages.)
there's the unusual movies (Metropolis), and the shows so odd they're fun (Those Who Hunt Elves). and there are non-pr0n shows that appeal to the perverts in us (Steel Angel Kurumi).
look around and give something a chance. there are several Anime databases out there that have all the information you need to learn about shows. and there are a lot of Anime out there that you might enjoy. read summaries and find something that appeals to you. then rent it or download it and see it for yourself.
please don't judge all Anime because of a dozen or so sour series.
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
I have seven words for you: all your base are belong to us.. Just because they have access to the original script doesn't mean the subs will come out worth a crap. Sure that's a video game but it's the same process.
I've seen anime where the fansubbed version is superior to the eventually licensed and translated version. You frankly do not need the script if the anime is any good because A> you can tell what the characters are up to and B> typically speaking they have a native japanese speaker doing a transcription or even transliteration and then they clean it up such that it looks more or less like proper conversational english.
For an example of a really confusing sub, check out tenchi muyo oav. There's an episode where a character says (in the subtitles) "It's muffin!" instead of "It's nothin'" but nothing she said sounded like either one, so it must be a translation. Now, I don't know japanese so I suppose nothing and muffin might have similar sounds in that language as they do in English, but it would be a staggering coincidence. One of the better fansub groups would add an explanation as to what the hell is being said and if I paused there I could read it and be enlightened. I don't see Anime as a road to learning Japanese (at least not by itself) but nonetheless I find those little cultural anecdotes both amusing and informative.
There are many very crappy pro translations. There are many very good fansubs. You can reverse these statements and they will still be true but some of my favorite subs are fansubs. Even if they're not accurate to me they're still better because they seem to match what the hell is going on on the screen. A good sub would accurately match what is going on in the anime and be an accurate translation, but sometimes that just doesn't seem to work and forcing it is not the answer.
We call it translation for a reason. Having the script is really only going to make a difference in quality in the case of transliteration.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
and Inuyasha is shown on broadcast television in Japan too. Anyways,
Inuyasha is the perfect example of a series with limited, quick & dirty animation. It's outsourced all over the place to several studios -- all mass-producing Inuyasha episodes simultaneously in order to keep up with the hectic TV schedule. And these studios are simultaneously working on episodes for _other_ series too. That is the most common way lengthy anime series are produced. Production of this type of series is hectic and corners are cut all the time in order to meet deadlines and save costs. Usually 3 to 6 "genga" (pencil drafting) studios will be working on the same TV series. And as usual, in-betweening and coloring work is outsourced to Chinese and Korean studios.
To see an illustrated example, check out / download the OAV "Animation Runner Kuromi 2" (go google for torrents), about a girl trying to keep a small animation studio together while they deal with producers while rushing to meet deadlines for 3 simultaneous series.
Two points for you:
1) A lot of kanji subtitles for opening/closing songs are actually part of the original broadcast.
2) If it's "impossible" to do proper translation without the written script in front of you, then how do Japanese speakers understand what the audiotrack means?
I've done professional translation (J-E/E-J) for nearly ten years now, including some video work, and while it can be tricky for business videos, anime is generally scripted in such a way that you don't have to have a written transcript in front of you to understand what everybody's saying.
Er... no. They left the city because the mother had tuberculosis, and country air was considered to be better for it.