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'I Have Some Horror Stories': Animator Talks Industry's Problems, Hopes for the Future

Although Chung does not believe that Japanese workers are in a position to organize and maintain unions, she firmly thinks that studios need to take responsibility by negotiating for higher rates with their business partners. With these higher rates, she wishes for the leaders to circulate more of the cash flow to their employees. This is particularly true when working with high-profile companies; Science SARU's impressive talent can be better leveraged with higher rates and schedules that do not burden its employees with overtime.

But there's only so much that individual animators can negotiate for. As more money flows into the anime industry by the year, Chung advocates for anime studios to communicate with each other and collectively determine their worth for investors. Instead of competing in a race to the bottom, studios can band together and pressure financiers to provide for reasonable schedules with equitable pay.

Studios should band up and agree together to raise the absolute minimum they would accept on different types of works, and then give recognition to the names of good clients who meet that minimum

“Currently, American animators' entry salary ranges around $50,000 with the average being $68,661 (Glassdoor). The rates in Canada are comparable, though the higher brackets – particularly in storyboarding or development – spike higher in the States. The American national average for a storyboard artist is $97,073. In comparison, entry salaries for Japanese animators is around $20,000 or lower, depending on whether they are salaried (the aforementioned amount) or are paid per cut.”

Although Chung does not believe that Japanese workers are in a position to organize and maintain unions

It's also not helpful to accept a blanket rate when animation cuts can vary wildly in terms of detail and complexity. She believes that each scene should be priced according to the number of days required to draw it, with 7,500 yen for an “easy” cut, 15,000 yen for a “medium” cut, and 30-45,000 yen (or more) for “difficult” cuts.

It is interesting Astro Boy from Mushi Production was brought up. I always hear people talk about how that TV anime, being the first, started the whole problem. Hayao Miyazaki may have said this as well. I am curious to how valid it is. It sounds reasonable as I have heard Tezuka artificially depressing prices when negotiating with Fuji TV, but unsure if it is true or not.

Yes, it's the usual problem. The client wants to pay as little as possible for the work; and that pushes down prices overall because studios know that no matter how low they go, there will be others who offer even lower rates. There will always be studios that will snap up any work for however low a pay, and then either do it themselves or outsource it to a studio that will work for even lower prices, maybe in some other country.

Studios banding together and agreeing on a minimum price is a good idea, but I think it would only work as long as the client is intent on working with those particular studios, and who knows about that. Currently I think a lot of Japanese anime studios are basically coasting on clout and reputation that eg. Netflix can use to drum up hype around a project, and also the fact that the studios have staff that the client can be assured have the know-how to handle a project. But in the long run it may lead to large companies like Netflix simply buying studios to make shows in-house, which is about the cheapest way to produce content that they can get; and only turn to more expensive third party studios with prestige projects.

So I dunno. Maybe clients should be less bloodthirsty about saving money, there should be fewer middlemen and other moneysinks and and and...

Yes, it's the usual problem. The client wants to pay as little as possible for the work; and that pushes down prices overall because studios know that no matter how low they go, there will be others who offer even lower rates. There will always be studios that will snap up any work for however low a pay, and then either do it themselves or outsource it to a studio that will work for even lower prices, maybe in some other country.

Studios banding together and agreeing on a minimum price is a good idea, but I think it would only work as long as the client is intent on working with those particular studios, and who knows about that. Currently I think a lot of Japanese anime studios are basically coasting on clout and reputation that eg. Netflix can use to drum up hype around a project, and also the fact that the studios have staff that the client can be assured have the know-how to handle a project. But in the long run it may lead to large companies like Netflix simply buying studios to make shows in-house, which is about the cheapest way to produce content that they can get; and only turn to more expensive third party studios with prestige projects.

So I dunno. Maybe clients should be less bloodthirsty about saving money, there should be fewer middlemen and other moneysinks and and and...

That it will exploit it's labor for as long and hard as it can while given the minimum pay as it seeks to reap maximum profit. Only major disruption could probably force through the needed changes and I doubt too many fans would like that if it effects their viewing output.

I've been wondering -- how common is it for Japanese animators to be salaried? My sense is, not very.