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INTEREST: NHK Program Discusses Anime Industry's Financial, Working-Condition Problems

bigivel wrote:

Is obvious that you don't even know what you're talking. "Negotiating for a fair share"? Of what, of their contracted work? That has nothing to do with share of the profits, but the money worth for the labor. Fair Negotiation about the labor money exist since ever and the responsability of the animation companies to do it for their benefit, it makes no sense that a 3rd party, the person that will have to pay them, to play in the side of the animation company.

I think you're the one who doesn't understand. The animation studios are paid little for the work they do - by all accounts too little. The problem with the idea of "the studios need to negotiate higher fees for themselves" is that they have basically no leverage to do so. If a production committee says to Studio A "we'll pay you X for making this show" and Studio A says "that's not enough, how about you pay us Y?", the committee can just say "never mind then, we can get Studio B to do it for X". There's a power imbalance in any money negotiations there, which the production committees exploit to keep their costs down.

bigivel wrote:

You talk of shares and of royalties(other posts, I will assume you're in the same state of belief), but you first need to know what those things are. Those are portions of owned product profit(shares) and fees for reproduction of your product(royalties). The animation companies(the small and medium size ones, that are the majority unfortunately) doesn't have ownership nor product at all. So no, they don't deserve a Share nor Royalties!

But it isn't set in stone that animation studios must never get royalties from anime that isn't an original work. As things currently stand with the standard contracts, they have no legal entitlement to royalties, but it can certainly be argued that if they do good work and the anime is popular and makes lots of money for the production committee, they deserve to get more money than if they do average work and the anime has middling sales or flops. Therefore, standard contracts should assign studios a share of royalties as well as a flat fee for work done.

bigivel wrote:

If you really want for those anime companies to have a Share and/or Royalties, than the solution is rather simple. The Animation Company joins the Production Committee! Problem solved. Is not like anybody is disabling them from doing that, in fact there are some anime projects where animation companies make part of the committee. So the million dollar question, why doesn't the animation studios do that?

The answer is because, by and large, they can't. See above regarding power imbalance in negotiations; if they can't negotiate a higher flat fee, they're unlikely to be able to negotiate royalties. Both ultimately require the committee to agree to getting a smaller slice of the pie.

Wow, I had no idea the anime business was making that much money.

Jonny Mendes wrote:

bigivel wrote: You understand that if what you're saying was true the final profit from Animation Studios would be increasing and would not be stable, right? Is stable because the money the get from commissions is not that much. Hardly enough to cover the expenses. That's why they have to wait until they get enough money to have their on original anime project. For example you have Studio Xebec. Only after 4 years and 7 projects, they invested in their first original anime. I don't know if they made a profit, but only a few years after that they were able to made another original anime. I don't remember if Kyoto Animation, the studio chose by Kodansha to make the big 2016 movie hit A Silent Voice ever made a original anime. From the $19.56 million the film made , most of it go to the Publisher. One studio the most probably have a big profit was MAPPA because of the hit Yuri on Ice that was a original anime. What im trying to said is that is very difficult for studios to have increase in profits. Most of them are only surviving in anime made for manga/LN publishers.

You're not understanding what I'm saying. If the common practice of studios was the one you're saying. That they save their money, even if it takes years, to be able to invest in an original series in the future, where they make part of the production committee or are themselves the only(or in partner relationship) producer, than that would bring 2 things.

1st there wouldn't exist so many "main" animation studios, and 2nd the direction of the money earned by animation companies in general would be increasing. That is how it works with majority of companies that enter in production themselves(Kyoto Animation, Sunrise, Pierrot, TMS Entertainment, Toei Animation, ...), and not only that but is how majority of the economy goes, and as you can see also how it goes for the Production Committee.

Is just a fact that majority of animation companies don't do that. They just stay in the save zone that is to be a contracting company and stay like that.

About Xebec, Xebec is a subsidiary company of IG Port. So brother of Production I.G. and Wit Studio. The company really is "free" of many problems if something goes badly.