The director of AoT one year apart 😭

Literal slave company. It'll be a good day when Mappa finally collapses in on itself.

POV: you’re watching a speed run on how to violate workers working conditions

F*** the whole industry

Every anime studio but KyoAni does that lol

While it sucks, I get the feeling if anime studios became more supported and got bigger to a point where animators actually make real wages, the work would become a lot more sanitized and safe as well.

It’s an art form that is single handedly made because of passion, not for influence or power or money and that’s why anime is so great rn

God damn

It's not that crazy tho in the 1st pic he looks like he don't get much sleep, but he look like ain't slept for days in the bottom pic

chihayafuru is so cute yall need to watch it

1. Mappa seems to be a special case. It's not really a coincidence that all the recent horror stories are coming from Mappa employees.

2. Anime already is sanitized and safe, unless you want to tell me with a straight face that Isekai #204 or Battle Shounen #603 are the pinnacle of creative freedom. They might as well make it sanitized and safe while giving employees actual decent wages and non-slavelike working conditions.

3. 99% of anime being made is for the purpose of money LMAO. Ya, I'm sure all those members of the production committee are pumping money into a production because they're oh so passionate about a series and aren't interested in the returns at all.

Everything has a negative side. if you want to know what is actually sanitized and safe, look at Hollywood. You may get one or two winners from Hollywood a year, but with anime you still get Attack on Titan, 86, Vivy, Fruits Basket, Megalo Box, Tokyo Revengers, To Your Eternity, and so much more in literally just a span of 3 months.

Every art form since the stone ages has had a plethora of forgettable s***. When you sanitize an art form, the trash will still be there but shows made with real passion and creativity like what I named will cease to exist as well. A good example of the reality of treating animators and anime creatives like its a huge corporate industry is what Netflix has been doing with their anime.

Most anime barely makes money and those animators will end up working 80-100 hour weeks just to take home something that barely constitutes as minimum wage in America. If they wanted to make money, they should've chosen a different profession. They're making anime because its their passion and its something they have dedicated their whole lives toward. There is a reason animators are not easily replaceable. It has taken nearly 2 years for KyoAni since the fire and they are not even remotely near the output they had before because animators who dedicate themselves that strongly are extremely difficult to find and even to make the limited output they are doing right now, they have just had established animators in other companies helping them.

"Anime barely makes money" ---> aja.gr.jp/download/anime-industry-report-2020-summary

You didn't name a single anime that took any creative risks. I'm also unsure of why you think the anime industry already isn't being treated like a huge corporate industry when you the number of shows being produced is increasing every year. But I guess we'll ignore Kadokawa aiming to produce 40 anime a year and focus on Netflix because Japanese = soul, and not Japanese = soulless.

You're right that animators should have chosen a different profession if they wanted to make money. Seems like many of them are making that choice considering how bad the labour shortage is. If I was optimistic I would say maybe studios will realize they need to start treating animators better after they started resorting to hiring any Twitter animator who can hold a pen, but as long as people eat up the sub-par garbage they release they really don't need to.

I'd also be down for the source on KyoAni using outside help, considering they are absurdly committed to their training schools and insistent on using in-house talent.

The CSW pv got 4 million views already more than some music videos wth

Every anime I named has taken major creative risks. Just because s*** isn’t serial experiments lain, doesn’t mean these aren’t works that would ever possibly be made through Netflix or Amazon. They’re made with real passion and soul and feature stories that deeply care about its characters and it’s themes. They aren’t edgy for the sake of it like Japan Sinks or obsessed with a gimmick at the cost of its characters and storytelling like Yasuke or even willing to completely create a train wreck like with the promised neverland s2. Even incredible anime directors in Shinichiro Watanabe or Masaaki Yuasa turned in the worst works of their careers when hired by Netflix.

Also a lot of the drive behind the anime industry’s revenue comes from the huge name anime. How much money really is something like 86 or Vivy going to make? Anime like that wouldn’t be made in the corporate sanitized world you want. It would just all be soulless identity politics or the biggest shounen names that just follow every trope

Also there isn’t any real fear of these animators quitting. Considering these Kyoto Animation animators nearly lost their lives due to an arson attack while making less than 20k a year and decided to work even harder and put in more time to create these anime, it’s pretty obvious that not even the fear of losing their life is going to stop them from doing what they love.

If anything, paying animators more is how you get Twitter lames doing the animation because then it becomes a viable career that a bunch of losers are going to try to get into.

See, you're just exposing how delusional you are about the state of the industry. 86 was one of the best selling LNs before the anime aired. It's not some f***ing underdog that only got made because passionate creators wanted to make something that went against the grain. 86 was a COMPLETELY safe bet and its hilarious that you're trying to use it as an example of the industry taking risks.

While we're at it:

Passion and soul =/= risk
Stories that care about characters and themes =/= risk
Unnecessary edge =/= no risk
Obsessed with gimmick =/= no risk
Train wreck =/= no risk

Also why are you complaining about identity politics when you keep using 86 as an example of something you think is good aehfasklfsa I swear you're trolling at this point.

If anything, paying animators more is how you get Twitter lames doing the animation because then it becomes a viable career that a bunch of losers are going to try to get into.

Wow, you're totally right dude. If you increase animator pay, only international Twitter animators will start to focus on animation as a career path and not a single living soul in Japan will care about animation again. I think you have a bright future as a job forecaster. We can't have Twitter animators with the talent of Bahi JD or Vercreek taking jobs from Japanese animators who worked on masterpieces like Qualidea Code. We gotta keep those gaijin out of the industry!

It has to be a medical condition or smth, yes they are being overworked but i've never seen smth like that, aint no way

tranquility really snapped with this one

Anyway I'm inclined to trust Tranquility's take on this 1, I know some s*** but this guy is an anime industry encyclopedia

This is awkward, I always considered you to know more than I did lol.

seeing someone argue why animators shouldnt be paid real wages is wild as hell especially when all it is is feeding into this false dichotomy of "more money = less soul", but yea im sitting back and letting tranquility take the wheel on this one too lol

and most anime is made simply to market the LN or manga its adapting from. Not every anime is f***in Attack on Titan or Demon Slayer where it will generate money just by itself. Most anime adapted spawns from a very successful source but that doesnt mean the anime itself is going to make real money. This is why we often get 1 cour anime adaptations because its mostly there to get people to buy and support the written source.

I mean s***, even something as huge as Fruits Basket literally sells in the thousands, not tens of thousands, of units in its BD/DVDs. Considering the cost per episode, I would imagine its not exactly bringing home blockbuster profit.

While we're at it, passion and soul is a risk in todays industries. When big corporations and money is involved, passion and soul is replaced by expectations of how to recoup that investment. Stories that care about characters and themes have clearly been replaced in Netflix/Amazon adaptations by gimmicks and cheap shock factor.

86, if anything, is a great example of how a show tackles identity politics and does it in a genuine way that presents the absurdity of both sides and has something genuinely new to say without ever feeling like it is pandering. I don't know how you can see s*** like The Underground Railroad, Lovecraft County, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, the female remake of Ghostbusters, etc. and say 86 is just typical corporate identity politics.

Most of your points are extremely delusional and ignore what has made anime become such a great form of entertainment and writing in the past 10 years and that is because it is easily the most ambitious and creative artform out there right now that is not being overruled by big corporations and still believes in talent over profit. As we are seeing with big corps starting to dabble in it though and the s*** that comes out of that, this era of anime will probably be ending soon.

And if you increase the pay and number of animators, Qualidea Code is going to become the norm. S*** increasing the budget of anime in recent years is what led some studios to try to implement god awful CGI into their anime.

more money = less soul is literally what Hollywood has proven

or capitalism in general

What show is your avi from ?

I trust you

OK before I begin, I'll actually give you the freebie on this one, because I do agree to an extent that more money = less soul. The influx of interest from companies like Crunchyroll and Netflix, alongside domestic greed from companies like Kadokawa has resulted in more anime being made every season (and they're usually seasonal schlock that just follows industry trends), which results in a lot of low quality shows since the talent pool either gets stretched thin, or it's all concentrated on a couple of shows and the rest get the scraps. I've been vocal about my desire for a collapse of the industry so we can return to a less corporate landscape. The main disagreement here is that I think the industry has already reached the point of no return, while you think the current landscape is acceptable.

most anime is made simply to market the LN or manga its adapting from

Yes. That is why anime is profitable. The production committee generally does not give a flying f*** if the show sells BDs. They want the sweet cash from merchandise, character songs, distribution rights, etc. That is what I'm talking about when I say 99% of anime is made for the sole purpose of money.

While we're at it, passion and soul is a risk in todays industries. When big corporations and money is involved, passion and soul is replaced by expectations of how to recoup that investment.

The expectations of recouping investment already exist in the current industry, what led you to believe that it doesn't? Passion and soul has more or less already been stamped out with a few exceptions, but those few exceptions would always be around regardless of the state of the industry. F***ing Maruyama left Madhouse to create Mappa because he felt Madhouse was too corporate and wanted more creative freedom, now he's not even with Mappa anymore because it turned into exactly what he hated.

if you increase the pay and number of animators, Qualidea Code is going to become the norm.

Lack of talent + lack of labour + s***ty schedule = s***ty production. Animators being treated as actual people = more people interested in the job. Bigger talent pool = higher chance of finding talented people. More talented people working = less animators working all nighters to try and finish their assigned cuts. Animator shortages are already destroying plenty of shows and for some reason you want to make sure being an animator is as unappealing as possible.

These production committees are laughing to the bank with the influx of money already in the industry and you think diverting that excess money to animators would be the end of anime lmao.

it is easily the most ambitious and creative artform out there right now that is not being overruled by big corporations and still believes in talent over profit

bahahahahaahah ya I love the creative ambition on display when 95% of a season is an isekai, highschoool romcom. generic action shows or moeblob cgdct.

even if this is 100% true (which its not that simple to boil it down to just those elements) thats still never an excuse to deny animators of a proper wage - that should be the baseline, and we can worry about the artform after that point. and achieving that baseline wont automatically mean that the industry will go hollywood either.

plus, corporations already have their hands all over the industry regardless, its not like any of these productions that we talk about are real indie s***.

I probably have more "Japan" knowledge but idk much about the industry itself/animators/directors/ect, I'm just a dude who watches shows for flashy animation and cool lights.

there aint no way im ever gonna try and argue you on animator treatment i'd be in over my head