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Ktimene's Lover



Joined: 23 Apr 2005
Posts: 2242
Location: Glendale, AZ (Proudly living in the desert)
PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 11:54 am Reply with quote
An Astro Boy statue valued at $9000. Damn, it's only 9000 not "over 9000".
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Richard J.



Joined: 11 Aug 2006
Posts: 3367
Location: Sic Semper Tyrannis.
PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 1:24 pm Reply with quote
That link on the state of the industry was very enlightening. I'd heard from more than a few sources that the working conditions sucked, now I really get the picture.

So, from that article I take away three things: First, the anime companies are mostly small and without the resources to either pursue legal action for the most part or effectively bargain for a better deal with the studio and TV stations. Thus they need to make most of their money back from merchandising and licensing.

Second, the working conditions and pay are terrible and new people are beginning to not want to go into the industry. A lot of the Japanese anime industry isn't even Japanese anymore, due to outsourcing to ludicrously low-bid countries.

Third, the fansubs are the last few nails in the coffin. Without the merchandising/licensing money, the anime industry is toast. They've relied on fans to support them through the other issues but now the fans aren't doing that.

It sounds like the needed fix is massive corporate consolidation. If the companies were big enough, they might be able to spread out the work a little more and possibly pay the people more. They might even be able to bargain for a better deal with the TV people, which would give them much needed capital. (Thus allowing for some of that long overdue legal action.)

Waits to hear people say "there's nothing wrong with the anime industry."
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eloyabun



Joined: 22 Feb 2007
Posts: 55
PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 2:39 pm Reply with quote
Songstress? Is that the ingrish for "female singer"? Laughing
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Jadress



Joined: 08 Oct 2003
Posts: 807
Location: Seattle. It purdy and nerdy!
PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 2:58 pm Reply with quote
Oh man, a Windaria DS game!! That's awesome. Now I can get totally depressed and control multiple pretty characters as they spoiler[commit suicide or thoroughly destroy themselves and those they love] anywhere I go!
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jel123



Joined: 28 Nov 2005
Posts: 108
PostPosted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:13 pm Reply with quote
Ctimene's Lover wrote:
An Astro Boy statue valued at $9000. Damn, it's only 9000 not "over 9000".

According to Google it is OVER NINE THOUSAND!!!
Closer to $10,000 in fact.
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reanimator





PostPosted: Thu Mar 13, 2008 10:03 pm Reply with quote
Richard J. wrote:
That link on the state of the industry was very enlightening. I'd heard from more than a few sources that the working conditions sucked, now I really get the picture.

Second, the working conditions and pay are terrible and new people are beginning to not want to go into the industry. A lot of the Japanese anime industry isn't even Japanese anymore, due to outsourcing to ludicrously low-bid countries.


I'm glad someone voiced his concern about Japanese animation production industry. Just like you, I have been known their situation for a while through Japanese websites. It made me sad to see many "fans" still want their free passive consumption without reasonable trade-off while someone in Japan work their butt off to make their favorite shows at lower-than-minimal wage. I think people should see this NHK program about daily life of a Japanese animator. It's bleak.

NHK つながるテレビ＠ヒューマン 07/11/04

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGRpI9IFYbQ

Richard J. wrote:
Third, the fansubs are the last few nails in the coffin. Without the merchandising/licensing money, the anime industry is toast. They've relied on fans to support them through the other issues but now the fans aren't doing that.


I agree with you. After all these years, fansubbers haven't reformed at all. Thanks to fansubs' irresponsible and selfish methods and growing number of speed subbers, many fans never consider the consequence of their consumptive act fueled by easy access. Now we're seeing result of badly struggling Japanese animation industry.
Anime only comes out when someone actually pick up their art equipments to make something. That takes one hell of effort from each person who is involved with production.
Actually their major profit is coming from DVD sales according to Anime Anime. TV sponsorship alone can't provide cost of quality that we enjoy. When studios make profit from DVD sales, they use that profit to fix mistakes they made on later episodes. Like adding more scenes, correct bad drawings, and filming (like that headless Naruto scene) for DVD.

Richard J. wrote:
It sounds like the needed fix is massive corporate consolidation. If the companies were big enough, they might be able to spread out the work a little more and possibly pay the people more. They might even be able to bargain for a better deal with the TV people, which would give them much needed capital. (Thus allowing for some of that long overdue legal action.)


It's not easy as it sounds. If a studio was consolidated by a bigger production company, parent company may influence production policy and creative policy. Toei is a good example. The company still makes more money than Studio Ghibli, but their creative output is more centered on mainstream than niche. We've seen their titles.
Studios are growing, but not too big. They don't want compromise creative freedom for near Hollywood level budget. They have been spreading out works to various subcontractor in Japan and overseas. The problem is that they never seem to work together as whole to solve current common industry problems. They seems to have standards in job positions, production work flow, etc. When it comes to payroll, they don't seem to have minimal wage & salary standard adjusted to inflation. It made me wonder if Japan itself has minimum wage or salary law. Also they don't seem to have a minimum standard contract price for TV, OVA, and feature which is matched with actual production.

Quote:
Waits to hear people say "there's nothing wrong with the anime industry."


Either people are ignorant or apathetic, the latter is worse than the former.
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