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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."
Anyone notice that a lot of the AMERICAN cartoons we like (Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, Clerks, and I believe Invader Zim) are all animated primarily by Korean animation farms? Also, I will take this opportunity to interject my worthless 2 cents about current anime: It sucks. I haven't seen a decent anime made after 1998.
Where the hell can you live in Japan on 50K yen a month? When I lived in Okinawa, I think the cheapest rent on the island was about three times that.
It's worth pointing out that the people interviewed in the article who are complaining about the death of anime, are employed by production houses who work on the very family-friendly anime - and with specific reference to "Chibi Maruko-chan" there was a well-known legal case from the voice-actors last year, as they weren't being paid residuals. I suspect that the situation is rather different for companies which make otaku-friendly anime - and I [i]KNOW[/i] it's different for companies who work with NHK. Actually, it's the otaku-friendly anime, and bishoujo anime specifically, which is powering Japan's anime boom.
I may be biased 'cause I'm originally from Japan... but does it really suprise you that Japanese kids do anime drawings better than other nation's kids?
I remember when I was in Japan, the kids drew their favorite characters from anime all the time, and the constant drawing was probobly good practice. One kid in 5th grade or so made a good drawing of one the guys from Dragonball, and the other kids were making fun of him for having traced it instead of drawing it, as if he was expected to draw that well without tracing.
It's kinda like the association of Americans with rock n' roll, or black people with rap. Race does not confer talent, but being immersed in a culture does help shape your talents.
The anime industry in Japan has mostly moved away from cels to to computer-based animation. Only a few legacy shows, like Chibi Maruko-chan or Sazae-san (which has been running since the 60s, I think) still use cels. Most new shows are of the digital ink-and-paint variety and many also feature a lot of 3D CGI assist. 5 years ago this was not so true, but practically every show made in the last 2 years is almost entirely digital.
This has stemmed the flood of outsourcing to a small leak. Almost any show you watch has a batch of Korean names in the end credits, but it's still mostly japanese. And all the top jobs are still held by japanese animators.
I know someone who was a former animator, ran a small studio in the late 90s, and was later a consultant for a DIP software company (Animo). One thing he said sparked the changeover was this: In order to make sure that work farmed out to studio XYZ in Korea matched the next scene farmed out to studio ABC in Thailand, the industry created a standard set of colors for cel paint. Being a relatively small industry, this led to one company making all the cel paint for everyone. A small, old, established company that had been doing it forever. And an old man who had been doing the job of master pigment mixer forever, having things his way, etc. Well, one day he, the only guy who really knew how to mix all the colors, had a heart attack and the industry realized their livlihood rested on the health of some crotchety old man at the paint company. Most studios switched over to digital within a year. ^_^
I've built up so much character I have an alter-ego
Its like any other media endeavour. The talent that is actually most directly responsible for creating the product gets a very small chunk of the pie.
For animation, the publishers get the money.
For videogames, the publishers get the money.
For books, the publishers get the money.
For music, the publishers get the money most of the time.
The only exception is for movies and for music, where the stars get a big chunk of money. But that is because a singer is always directly associated with the song, and can choose not to sing so no one gets any money.
TV and Movies (moreso for TV though), a particular actor usually comes to be known for the character and can destroy the endeavour by not co-operating.
And the same happens with authors, though they need to hit it big before they can get a reasonable deal.
Animation and videogames are more collaborative though, and one person is not able to just pull the plug on the deal as above.
You will not get paid adequately for your services if your reasonably replaceible, or of the publisher can do the deal without you.
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