Forum - View topicINTEREST: Yamakan, Toshio Okada Criticize Production Committee System
|
Goto page 1, 2, 3 Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Lemonchest
Posts: 1771 |
|
|||
|
mo money mo problems.
|
||||
|
||||
Joe Mello
 Posts: 2319 Location: Online Terminal |
|
|||
|
This reminds me of an old image meme where the caption was "My, spending other people's money is fun!"
I understand that larger budgets will generally lead to higher quality, but there's only so much bravado when you are risking large sums of money on a project that could flop--not to mention a reputation--and this is all before taking into account the weird relationships the SE Asian nations have with each other. For companies who are used to having their otaku products live on just-enough-to-work margins, it may still be a bridge too far. |
||||
|
||||
Afezeria
 Posts: 817 Location: Malaysia, Kuantan. |
|
|||
|
Guess this sort of thing further solidify the fact that Chinese will kept continuously making/copying anime and it would only kept increasing? Hence the statement of funding through their money. I'm hoping that I ain't gonna be around when that happen.
|
||||
|
||||
|
samuelp
Industry Insider
Posts: 2251 Location: San Antonio, USA |
|
|||
|
They should just change the corporate structure of the production committees so they can take the 17 million and still keep a controlling share.
If it were an llc for example you don't have to split the shares based solely on investment capital like you do with the partnership structure that production committees are usually legally formed as. But that would mean learning some different Japanese coporate law and dealing with more paperwork. |
||||
|
||||
Engineering Nerd
 Posts: 904 Location: Southern California |
|
|||
I don't think you understand the whole situation though: what they are saying is (from the original Japanese source): Let's say Chinese investors (mainly official anime streaming sites like Bilibili, Youku, PPTV etc) put 1 billion yen into the Production Committee, however not everything of that 1 billion yen will directly go to the funding of that specific show, in most cases, that show will only get about 100 million yen tops. Where did rest of the money go? The production committee actually use the remaining funds to fund nine (approximation, of course) other shows, hence why we see the huge jump of amount of shows being produced every season. Wait...why would they do that though?! Simple, to limit the degree of influence of the Chinese investors can have in the production committee. The nature of production committee allows the ones who invest the most have the most benefits and able to make some critical decisions. But while some Japanese committee members desire Chinese money, they certainly don't want them to have a "voice" in the committee meetings (If you put yourselves in their shoes, that makes sense). Thus, by dividing the funds into multiple anime, the Chinese investments all of sudden isn't as significant comparing to other minor local investors, a great business move if you are the top dog of Japanese anime industry. But aside from complaints of Chinese investors, that also creates problems for Japanese animators: 1) The ones who work at the bottom of anime industry hierarchy: animators and staff etc, their benefits aren't getting better because of the increasing funds, those bonuses were still being kept by the producers and distributors. 2) There are certainly more anime being made, but there is a limit of how many shows being produced and if there aren't enough animators working for each anime, you will get inconsistent works once in a while. Which is why you see more Chinese-Japanese anime productions being made, because some Chinese investors are trying to work around the traditional production committee system, and now they are also being more careful on the licensing fees this winter, for example, some Chinese anime simulcasting sites admit (via social media) they are paying less licensing fees than last year, mainly because the competition for simulcasting rights are being cooled down a lot... It's a lot more complicated than "let's hate/blame everything on Chinese", hopefully this post helps. Last edited by Engineering Nerd on Thu Jan 05, 2017 8:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
|
|||
|
Criticize it all you want, but what can you do? Animation has a set cost, and unless you're willing to kill yourself by animating it on your own time, you need collaborators. It's not like indie films where any schmuck can grab a camera and boom mic and hire no names to get shots. You can't make independent anime unless they're shorts.
Interesting how western interests don't apply to his argument though. Irrelevant? Last edited by walw6pK4Alo on Thu Jan 05, 2017 8:58 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||
|
||||
Mr. Oshawott
 Posts: 6773 |
|
|||
|
Aside from his declaration of Anime being "dead", I agree with Yamakan that the production commitee system, while helpful in managing risks involving multiple stakeholders, has been an irritating nightmare with their obsession of wanting to have everything under their control...
|
||||
|
||||
Blanchimont
 Posts: 3591 Location: Finland |
|
|||
What exactly are you talking about and how does it relate to the article? The money is there(chinese investors), but the investment receiver(production committee) doesn't like too much Chinese(foreign) control, so the investment is split up and each target(your animu) receives only a partial financing of its overall costs with those funds. What I assume they are advocating is for the Chinese(foreign) investors to bypass that whole 'committee' stage and fund the production(s) directly. The anime studios will still be the ones doing the work. In both cases. The money for that work will still be there. In both cases. What's so hard to understand? |
||||
|
||||
|
Rednimue
Posts: 107 |
|
|||
|
Say whatever you want but the increasing involvement of Chinese 3rd parties, in making anime, reeks more and more with each passing day.
Personally I don't like this, and I have the feeling it'll get even worse in the future ... |
||||
|
||||
|
luisedgarf
Posts: 671 Location: Guadalajara, Mexico |
|
|||
|
I think the source of the problem is the fact Japan and China are the two remaining countries who still does 2D animation on regular basis, when everyone else has moved to CGI because it's more cheaper, quicker and requires less people than traditional animation, hence why they are still struggling with budgets. The fact they refuse to move to CGI only makes the situation worse.
|
||||
|
||||
Jonny Mendes
 Posts: 997 Location: Europe |
|
|||
|
The conclusion is Production Committees are the last barrier to Chinese domination of Japanese anime.
If Chinese want to invest in Japanese anime, its ok, but they will never have full control because of Production Committees will never allows them to do so. What Toshio Okada are advocating "getting rid of these middle-aged men [on the production committees] and connecting directly with the Chinese funders." will take control from production committees and will give it to Chinese funders. Or are he expecting they will fully funding a show and give full control to studios?? What would happen was the real dead of Japanese anime and the born of Chinese anime made in Japan. Can you imagine 50 "Bloodivores" per season?? If they like China so much, go work there and let anime alone. But in reality what will happen is what happens always with China. After they get the know-ow, they will drop Japanese anime like a stone and will made they home-born animation. Even more if you look at the history between Japan and China. What they really want is to have a strong animation industry and get rid of Japanese anime influence as fast as possible. But still they have a long way to go. |
||||
|
||||
Sakagami Tomoyo
 Posts: 948 Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia |
|
|||
Why does this "reek"? Why do you not like it?
Anime makes greater and greater use of CGI with each season. Granted, the industry as a whole tends to stick with traditional hand-drawn pictures for characters (though there is the occasional 100% CGI production), but even that is getting more and more computer-supported. |
||||
|
||||
|
Afezeria
Posts: 817 Location: Malaysia, Kuantan. |
|
|||
|
@ Engineering Nerd, thanks for your explanation.
|
||||
|
||||
|
reanimator
|
|
|||
That is not the issue. 2D animation is 2D animation whether it's drawn on paper or on computer tablet. I don't disagree that CGI is efficient, but it doesn't translate to quality directly. It's all about skill level of artists and time & care spent on making it. Right now, some Japanese studios are implementing CGI for their traditional animation and have animators' workload gotten lighter or pay went up? Of course not. Now it's expected come up with higher visual quality at same usual cost. For a long time, Japanese animators are screwed by the system that hinders growth. Ones carries the name of high quality are famous/popular animators (insert name here) and they're nearing retirement. Typical budget in anime TV or film is still ridiculoulsly low. Who makes a 22 minute TV animation epsiode with glitz and glamour at $100,000 or less in developed nations like Japan? No one. Certainly you can pull it off in less developed countries where labor and currency are cheap, but Japanese put their own first before ship out labor oversea. |
||||
Top Gun
 Posts: 4833 |
|
|||
|
The production committee system is completely odious no matter how you slice it, so anything that allows studios to pull an end-around and get more direct funding seems like a fantastic step.
|
||||
|
||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group