The Animation industry as a whole has been on a spiraling path to disaster for many years. But what’s causing American animators to rally now? And why do Japanese animators continue to suffer doing what they love? In this video I explore how animation got to this state, and where it might be headed.
Video Transcript:
Why The Animation Industry is Spiraling
[@AWorkersIgnited] “What happened to all the animation workers? Oh, a lot of them are unemployed in record numbers, in fact, and many have been unemployed for upwards of a year.”
[Rahul Purini] “AI is definitely something that we think about a lot of different workflows within the organization. [What] we are very focused on testing is our subtitling and closed captioning.”
[The Canipa Effect] “Funimation translators who are being paid more than their new colleagues, were either laid off or given the option to accept a pay cut, that depending on the person, could be drastic.”
[Yutaka Yamamoto, Translation] “However, most of the industry’s money is being scalped to the point where, by the time it reaches the workers they’re like, “What? This is it?”
[Anime News Network] “Jujutsu Kaisen’s primary animator tweeted I want to unalive quickly.”
[No The Robot] “Recently, artists at studios like MAPPA in Japan have started to leak how brutal the working conditions are. The studios will make their artists sign NDAs so that they don’t speak out about these harsh conditions”.
[Anime News Network] “If you’re wondering why we haven’t heard more about this, bad mouthing one of your employers is a sure way to get blacklisted”.
[HitReg] “He worked 600 hours with no paid overtime in a week where he couldn’t even go home. The man had ended his life working for one of the most famous anime studios in Japan, which got off completely scot free”.
If you’ve been paying attention to what’s been going on in the world of animation right now, things are looking pretty grim. With headlines of beloved animation companies shutting down their buildings and laying off hundreds of staff. The poor working conditions of Japanese animators whose passions are exploited for profit. The list continues to get dimmer and dimmer for the animation industry, but I believe the major issues of what’s going on in the animation industry worldwide can be summed up to three major things, the first being corporate greed and monopolization.
The second, the plight of the overworked and underpaid animators who make the animations that we love to consume. And the third, of course, is the rise or the continued use of unprotected labor in foreign countries, as well as the rise of A.I. Let’s start with everyone’s favorite corporate greed and monopolization.
Corporate Greed and Monopolization
Cartoon Network should be a household name that many Americans who grew up in the US around the 1990s to the 2010s should be familiar with, especially if they watch cartoons.
Because Cartoon Network is known for some of the most popular well known cartoons of all time in the US. On top of that, they also hosted Adult Swim and Toonami, which are some of the biggest gateway channels to anime for fans who grew up during that time, including myself, I would not be as big of a fan of anime if not for Adult Swim, Toonami, and Cartoon Network.
So it was to my surprise and the surprise of many others to hear that Cartoon Network was kind of going under. Not that it was completely disappearing. The brand is still kind of around, but just not to the same extent that it used to be. And this comes in the wake of the Cartoon Network building shutting down, and the virality of one post by Animation Workers Ignited, in which they spread the #RIPCartoonNetwork, and they accompanied it with a video explaining that Cartoon Network is kind of going under.
After some massive layoffs and a lot of consolidation, a lot of the series that were on Cartoon Network are now being pushed on Max.
[@AWorkersIgnited] “What happened to all the animation workers? A lot of them are unemployed in record numbers. In fact. But they carried the industry during the pandemic. That’s right. When Covid first hit, animation was able to operate completely remotely, making it one of the only forms of entertainment that could continue production uninterrupted.But studios decided to pay them back by canceling projects, outsourcing jobs and laying off artists en masse”.
And all this news comes right before some huge negotiations are starting to go down between animators in California and the networks that they work for. But before I lose anime fans who could care less about American animation, let’s talk about something that kind of affects every American anime fan. And it’s the plight of Crunchyroll.
Between Sony buying the brand and absorbing it with the beloved yet controversial Funimation brand, which officially moonlighted this year. The merger moved most of Funimation’s catalog over to Crunchyroll, but not all, leaving no place to watch certain series, OVA’s or movies that were once available. Especially since some of these series haven’t been re-licensed for publication in decades, meaning even physical media is difficult to obtain these days.
For example, I have the Eureka Seven Blu-ray like the first part, which I got on Crunchyroll for like $3, and I thought it was a steal because it is. But I realized it was not as much as the sale as I thought, because the second half of this is not really available anywhere. But I can’t even complain that much because at least I didn’t buy anything on Funimation.
Unlike other people who had bought other digital goods on Funimation. And the catalog that was on there is not transferred to Crunchyroll, which leads to lost legal enemy media and stoked the flame for fans to feel vindicated to sell the seven seas. And we can’t forget that the CEO of Crunchyroll stated that they are actively testing AI translations, even though their current translations are already struggling and their translators can’t even make a living doing it.
Despite translation being probably the most fundamental element of bringing anime to American audiences. And Crunchyroll doesn’t only just have subtitles and translations and dubs for it. For English, they have multiple languages, so their translation not being up to par is a huge issue because it’s literally how people get access to that type of content. And then on top of that, translator’s not really getting paid well for this type of work, even though, again, it should be the lifeblood of American, syndication of like, anime.
And then on top of that, to hear that the CEO cares more about investing in AI translation instead of like, the people that would bring us accurate translations, for the series. But that should be it, right? I mean, what else is Crunchyroll done? They couldn’t have possibly done anything else. Oh wait, I forgot about the fact that they wouldn’t even consider sitting down with a voice actor to talk about unions.
Ended up completely replacing him and other people on the project, like Kyle McCarley for Mob Psycho in a series Mob Psycho 100 being replaced for the final season, even though his only requirement was to have a meeting to consider unions for voice actors and not even implement it for theMob Psycho 100 project.
[Kyle McCarley] “And Crunchyroll, who is producing the show, about potentially producing this season of the show on a Sag-Aftra union contract. And as a result of those conversations, I’m making this video because it’s looking very, very likely that I will not be reprising my role as Mob.”
And I think something that people tend to forget is the fact that Crunchyroll and other major, streaming services that are trying to acquire anime like Netflix are ignoring or at worst, contributing to the pressure on the anime industry to produce lots of different series and lots of episodes of series in a short period of time, which leads to a whole lot of other dark practices and standards that continue to be a plight on the anime industry and the people who work at it.
And that’s just kind of breaking the iceberg of what’s going on with the animation industry in the background. But the biggest example of corporate greed is in the anime industry itself. With the standard practice of producing Anime weekly for TV premieres. That has been around since Osamu Tezuka’s time back in the 1940s with the series Astro Boy and has not changed since. Even though the quality and the amount of effort that goes into creating the anime that comes out weekly has significantly increased over time.
And then there’s also corruption in the studios and production and advertising agencies, and the poor distribution of money that does not seem to end up in the hands of the people who actually make the series or not a lot of it goes into the hands of the people who actually make the series.
This can be best explained through an interview with Toshiro Okada and Yutaka Yamamoto, who are two anime directors who are well known in the industry. They did an interview in 2016 that addresses the idea of the anime industry thriving or dying, and this was translated by the Animation Dormitory Project. In the video, the two directors discuss how the industry is falling apart and it probably will collapse at some point.
Back then they said it was in the next one or two years in 2016, but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s only gotten worse.
[Yutaka Yamamoto, Translation] “All of the money in the industry is at the top. It doesn’t trickle down to the workers. ‘Why,’ you ask. But my rough thesis is that we must let the industry fall soon. I have to choose my words very carefully here, but let’s just say that’s the only way we can ‘cut out the middlemen.’ Now you might think this is a wild statement. The industry is functioning as designed, and the systems in place have become integral to anime creation. However, most of the industry’s money is being scalped to the point where, by the time it reaches the workers they’re like, ‘What? This is it?’ And to stop that, we need to change to interfacing directly with consumers, albeit maybe not totally business-to-consumer style.”
If you want to learn more about what’s going on through the perspective of people who work in the anime industry specifically. I suggest you watch this whole video. It’s really insightful, and several other videos. But let’s talk about the heart of anime, the heart of animation, which are the people who make them. The animators and the staff who make all of the art and stories come to life.
Overworked & Underpaid Animators
Some of the most concerning news to come out of Japan and the anime industry is the fact that workers are being extremely overworked and extremely underpaid. MAPPA came under scrutiny last year because of its high turnout rate of series and people questioning the state of its animators, with some anonymous sources who work for the studio revealing that the animators were poorly treated and severely overworked to meet tight deadlines.
Which is sad because for years people were questioning if MAPPA’s animators were doing okay, Especially when seeing clips of like, the Attack on Titan director not looking good and several other animation staff just not seeming okay. And then of course, for this bombshell to drop that they are definitely not doing okay. Really kind of broke the hearts of a lot of anime fans.
And especially my favorite part was calling out the freaking “fans” who were getting death threats to animators for their series. Not looking great. Meanwhile, the animators are barely making enough to live. And on top of that, not doing mentally okay if they are barely hanging on.
[Anime News Network] Jujutsu Kaisen’s primary animator tweeted I want to unalive quickly. The recent struggles with JJK production have garnered a ton of attention because they’re working on such a high profile show and how extremely outspoken the staff have been.”
And just the idea of like, people online sending death threats to people because something doesn’t look right just makes- it just pisses me off. Like the entitlement of certain people is insane.
Something lost in the MAPPA call it era though is the fact that it isn’t the only studio that should be under scrutiny. Many animation studios have similar tactics to MAPPA that leads to increased stress and poor working conditions for not just animators, but other staff as well. This is all just a product of industry wide standard practices that fail to protect animators and staff.
This, coupled with the fact that the most employed staff are also freelance contractors rather than salaried workers, meaning essentially that they are more replaceable and have no real security. Additionally, a lot of staff start off as Douga Man, which is like a starting position within the industry where the job is mostly to clean up cuts between scenes, and these positions are often the ones that you hear where people are getting underpaid and overworked.
Though there are people who surpass this position and get into higher positions. There is not as much of a standard of teaching or training newer employees to get to higher positions in which they can grow within their careers. Not to mention that there’s also the concept of major studios and companies poaching seasoned animators, staff and directors with high retainer fees, which not only leads to huge inconsistencies in the quality of projects, but also less investment in newer animators and staff in a studio, because money is being spent on already seasoned creators.
And this is why we see certain directors working in different studios, sometimes on multiple projects at the same time, or in the same year, so that a studio can say they worked with this director to create this project. We touched on unions a little bit with the Crunchyroll scandal, but the union situation in Japan is something totally different than what we are used to seeing here in the US.
According to the Anime Dormitory Project, in a comment under one of their videos, they talk about how unions work in Japan, how they differ from those in the US, stating quote, “In Japan, unlike in the West, industry wide unions aren’t the norm and said Japanese unions are specific to each company, a practice that seen as overly favorable to employers is actually banned in the United States.
This setup leaves individual anime studios at a disadvantage when dealing with production committees.”
Meaning things like boycotting and protesting. Things that we’re seeing currently with animators on strike in Hollywood and last year with the writers on strike. It doesn’t work the same in Japan as it does in the US. Again, especially since many animators are also freelance.
We also can’t ignore the exploitative element to the anime industry situation, as many of the creators and artists in this industry in Japan take their jobs very seriously and often admit to accepting poorer working conditions for the chance to work on their favorite series, or with prestigious or big name studios and on notable projects which companies use to draw in pools of talent and like dedicated creators that they can use and throw away at any given moment.
But a constant and extremely underrepresented force and bring change to the anime industry is the Anime Dormitory Project, which is a campaign that provides housing for new and severely underpaid animators in the industry and who is working on adapting new models to change the status quo of the corrupt working conditions prevalent in the industry.
The Animator Dormitory project has been on a path to helping animators for over 10 years by housing underpaid animators and creating new frameworks for anime production through individual sourcing. They also provide information on animators and their livelihoods through their YouTube channel, which is where I’ve taken a lot of the sources for the section of the video, and ways to help and support their projects will be listed in the description as well.
Animation’s Biggest Open Secret (Outsourcing)
We already established that the industry has really tight deadlines that they have to meet, and therefore it needs a lot of manpower in order to put out animation. The next portion is what I like to call the animation industry’s open secret worldwide. In a video from Paolo from Tokyo, in which he goes behind the scenes in the life of an anime director.
It’s cited that at least 200 staff are working on each episode of series Mayonaka Punch, which is a summer 2024 anime produced by studio PR works. Now I suck at math but imagine over 200 staff working on 12-24 episodes of a series of over 200 anime annually. That. That to me sounds like a lot of people on a rotation constantly.
And on top of that, the ungodly crunch of weekly scheduled episodes that have been traditionally passed down since the dawn of television anime via the godfather of anime Osamu Tezuka. Combined with the layers of committees, merchandising, publication, advertising, and more that run the industry and determine how money is spent and who it’s going to. That often is the trickle down to many people who are at the heart of making this series, compiles into one giant mess.
One company handling this many people on rotation is costly and time intensive, and that’s of course, where outsourcing comes in. Sakuga Blog describes outsourcing as “the process of subcontracting part of the work to other studios. Partial outsourcing is very common for tasks like animation, coloring, backgrounds, and the like, but mostly the anime also has instances of full outsourcing where an episode is entirely handled by a different studio.”
Again, outsourcing is not limited to Japan, as many American animation companies outsource their works as well. Ask anyone who has worked in the animation industry in the US. They will tell you.
[No The Robot] “Most U.S. productions outsource their animation overseas, such as family Guy, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Clone Wars, and pretty much every Dreamworks TV show that more stories come out about these working conditions in other countries and studios.
It’s unfortunate that it takes leaks for this information to get out, but that’s the world we live in.”
For the most part, what I’ve learned is that outsourcing in animation inherently was not meant to be a bad thing. Outsourcing solves the problem of getting work done in a short amount of time by reaching out to other animators, sometimes in different countries, to get that work done and meet the deadlines that they have to meet.
It also leads to bigger problems. Outsourced work almost always has to be corrected in some way, and additionally communication is tricky. We all know how communicating from one person to another can cause a lot of issues. We’ve seen that in endless slice of life anime. But imagine communicating several minor details like the size of a tree in the background being done by an animator for companies removed from the main company.
This leads to scenes and sometimes entire episodes in a series that are inconsistent with the rest of the work. But the biggest issue with outsourcing is that it’s cheap and desirable to companies who would rather deal with possibly inconsistent work, and even breaking the law than paying their staff fairly. Japanese and American companies get around union wages and hiring and training costs for staff by outsourcing work to other countries who lack these.
To the point of literally violating U.S. sanction laws by outsourcing to North Korean animation companies. It was discovered that there are few Japanese and American animations worked on by SEK studio, which is a studio from North Korea, including American series for Prime Video and HBO Max. Like Invincible season three and Iyanu: Child of Wonder and anime in 2024, including Dahlia in Bloom.
Because the companies responsible for these titles are not even aware that their series are being worked on by sanctioned countries. It just proves how deep the process of outsourcing really goes, and how out of hand it can get. On top of this, we can also acknowledge the negative ways that American and Japanese animation companies kind of look down on these other countries that they outsource their projects to.
For example, according to one Chinese animator who lashed back at Japanese animation studios’ lack of education and professionalism, and also criticized how Japan only works with Chinese animators because they’re cheap but don’t invest in their stories, don’t invest in or believe in Chinese directors kind of taking over projects. Some Japanese companies have even, simply, allegedly, been in trouble for hiring underage workers to animate their projects.
The Elephant in the Room: AI
If this was a video made before the last, like two or three years, I probably would end this section here and go on to the conclusion. But I can’t because we have to talk about the AI elephant in the room. There are a whole slew of issues that, like laws, just not keep up with. Plagiarism is one of the biggest, with recently a company and a Luma AI trying to show off their tawdry machines.
It kind of backfiring, because their animation, first of all, is extremely uncanny and unsettling. If you watch the video, there is no consistency between one scene to the next. The characters look different every time. The story even looks different. And then on top of that, there was clearly a rip off of Monsters Inc. or it was clearly trained on Monsters Inc. because literally, Mike Wazowski shows up in the background of one of the scenes.
Though it’s easy to, like, laugh at AI right now. It is continuing to get better. I think it will get to the point where it can create a more coherent, animated sequence that is on par with when artists are creating now. And a big gripe with American animators right now who are on strike with these studios is trying to protect themselves and their work from AI and also keep companies from using AI instead of hiring real people and to make work.
AI has been and can be used as a tool. It should be a tool, but it’s being more and more promoted as something that should take over these jobs of people who actually take the time and skill to learn and create. And now, with OpenAI launching in Japan, there’s already criticism from like industry vets and big names in the anime industry who are trying to, like, fight back against the risk of being overshadowed by like, soulless AI creations that steal work from countless hours of real people who have made the animation that we know and love today.
Honestly, if you’re worried about anime looking too much the same right now, imagine how similar it’s going to look when AI completely takes over everything. Authenticity. Who? Uniqueness. Where? It does not- It will not exist in a world where AI completely takes over animation.
So What Now?
But what can we even do to fix it? I don’t know if we can necessarily fix the way things are going right now, by just watching anime alone, or watching animation alone.
We can try to support the people and the animators and their causes, especially right now, like, you know, the most tactile thing we can do is support animators who are fighting and striking and negotiating for their rights and to not be replaced by AI. There’s also, like the sentiment of supporting more in the animation, which is good, but I’ve learned it shouldn’t be the only solution.
Like, even if you put all your money into just supporting an indie project, it wouldn’t solve what’s going on in the animation industry right now. To the production side, and the overseas animation team. Indie animation shows usually crowdfund to create like a pilot episode or a teaser or a trailer so that they can try to pitch their projects to companies that will help fund, a full project.
So yes, it’s important to help fund smaller creators and their works, especially if you want to see something that is not yet out there. But also realize that something has to give industry wide in order for us to be able to see these stories. A few of my favorite indie projects that I would love to see, get love and recognition and get picked up by a streaming service are Wheels and Roses, I’ve talked about in another video.
There’s also Pritty the animation, The Will of Monsters, Towards Galaxies End, Skelly. These are all incredible animations, created by POC creators and people who have worked in the industry. And there’s a lot of talented, hardworking people behind each one of these projects. That would be so influential to see for so many people, especially young people.
All in all, this video is pretty bleak. And, there’s a lot going on that is kind of out of the control of fans. And it feels like we can’t really do much. But on the American animation side, you know, there are people striking and fighting and working hard to be heard and seen. And as for anime fans in the US who feel like they don’t have any say in what’s going on in Japan, I have to say that it is easy to think that we are just so far removed and we can’t do anything about it, but if we, as just American anime fans who are far removed from Japan, have been
able to influence the anime industry, have made it really popular in the US and continue to talk about it to the point there’s like hundreds of YouTube channels and people talking about anime at any given time. It’s like a great time to be an anime fan right now. There’s no doubt that we can inspire some kind of change for the ways that the animation industry works and the people who are working under it, and the people who are negatively affected by the industry.
Thank you to my lovely patrons for helping me make this video possible. Support the avenues of expression in your life that you think are valuable. And don’t let AI take it over. Okay, that’s all I have to say. Peace.
Sources
Sources Referenced
#RIPCartoonNetwork Post
https://x.com/AWorkersIgnited/status/1810440310838968397
Crunchyroll president Rahul Purini on how anime took over the world
Crunchyroll Confirms Testing A.I. for Subtitling https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2024-02-27/crunchyroll-confirms-testing-a.i-for-subtitling/.208086
It’s STILL Impossible to Live as a Crunchyroll Translator | The Canipa Effect
Is the Anime Industry Thriving or Dying?
The Animation Industry is COLLAPSING
Animator Tweets That He Wants to Unalive Himself | Anime News Network
This Anime exposed a $28,000,000,000 Sweatshop
Anime: A Slave Industry
2024 Animation Industry Layoff Tracker https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/2024-animation-industry-layoff-tracker-236827.html
Cartoon Network Studios to Move Out of Storied Burbank Headquarters https://www.animationmagazine.net/2023/07/warner-bros-discovery-closing-cartoon-network-studios-hq-in-burbank/
A Message to the Fans of Mob Psycho 100
Kyle McCarley May Not Star in Mob Psycho 100 III Anime Due to Disagreement with Crunchyroll about Union Dubs
Animator Dormitory Channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsLPWmJXcELI3QTuqzNqkVQ
One Piece and Dragon Ball Directors Call Out Anime Child Labor Allegations https://www.cbr.com/one-piece-dragon-ball-directors-anime-child-labor-controversy/)
The Animator Dormitory Project 2024
https://gogetfunding.com/animator-dorm-2024
Anime Is Booming. So Why Are Animators Living in Poverty?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/business/japan-anime.html
Jujutsu Kaisen reddit threats post
Why The Anime Industry Lacks Unions And How That Could Change: A Veteran Producer Speaks https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/why-the-anime-industry-lacks-unions-and-how-that-could-change-a-veteran-producer-speaks-212042.html
Overworked Animators in Japan Survey https://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/new-survey-shows-japans-animation-workers-are-overworked-underpaid-and-face-regular-harassment-239390.html#:~:text=The
Anime Insider: Japan Discriminates Against Chinese Animators https://www.cbr.com/anime-japan-chinese-animators-discrimination/
Untranslated Archived Tweets from Chinese Animator https://togetter.com/li/2297711
Outsourcing definition (Sakuga Blog): https://blog.sakugabooru.com/glossary/outsourcing/
What Actually Is Anime Outsourcing? – The Historical Context And Current Reality Of Anime’s Life Support https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2021/06/09/what-actually-is-anime-outsourcing-the-historical-context-and-current-reality-of-animes-life-support/
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Animation Director Calls Japanese Government “Sell Outs” Over A.I. Stance
https://www.cbr.com/jjk-nishii-terumi-japanese-government-ai-sell-out
North Korea Anime Outsourcing https://www.cbr.com/anime-north-korea-tv-series-outsource-sanctions/
A Career in the Anime Industry! Freelance Animator Oda Sensei.
More Japanese interviews with animators and staff from same channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@MaruExposito/videos
Day in the Life of a Japanese Anime Director
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCPZzEbhNJw&ab_channel=PaolofromTOKYO
Anime Mentioned/Shown
Shirobako
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!
Uzumaki
Mob Psycho 100
Jujutsu Kaisen
Attack on Titan
Vinland Saga
Astro Boy
Kimi Ni Todoke
Invincible
Iyanu: Child of Wonder
Dahlia in Bloom
