Modern animation studios are glorified sweatshops.
Animators are paid by the hour, while all extra proceeds go to investors.
If you can, try to send your financial support directly to the animators.
Support animators on social media, ESPECIALLY when they start to unionize.
Supporting the official release is a good thing. By watching anime on Crunchyroll, Netflix or another official streaming service and buying the official merchandise, you ensure that part of the proceeds goes to the studio behind the show. Still, this support means little to animators themselves beyond their continuous employment. Why?
Animators are not treated well
As we are seeing with the ongoing MAPPA scandal, the working conditions in animation studios in Japan are absolutely horrible. The staff is working under a never ending crunch, with constant overtime resulting in inevitable burnouts. These are not conditions under which a work of art could be lovingly crafted! These are conditions of a British Industrial Revolution era factory — so it’s not surprising that many employees have been going to social media to vent out their frustrations.
It is slightly more surprising to see that they are met with ridicule, scorn and hate from the community. These are the people that make our favorite stories a reality, and if they are facing trouble — and especially trouble from their higher ups — we need to stand with them, not against them!
Supporting the official release helps marginally
You would’ve thought that the actual people behind Jujutsu Kaisen’s fantastic adaptation are earning well from the show’s success. Sadly, they are not. In Japan, animators earn an average annual salary of 2,846,592 yen — all while the overall average salary in Japan is 6,170,000 yen, more than twice their amount! Despite their backbreaking work, animators are severely underpaid — and their salaries don’t depend on the success of the product!
Most anime studio staff are paid by the hour. This, of course, means that all the extra cash the worldwide audience is throwing at their product doesn’t really go to them — no, it goes to their higher ups. The company CEO, the board of directors, the investors — the people who did no actual work to make these stories come true, yet are profiting from them the most. Oh, of course, if a studio doesn’t receive any money, it closes and all those creative minds are thrown to the wind, so we HAVE to keep supporting them. But throwing more cash at them is not THE way to help, sadly.
What can be done?
First of all, if you want to financially support the animators making your favorite anime — look them up. If they have a Patreon, a Fanbox, a Kofi, or their equivalents, you could send your financial support to them directly, bypassing any greedy (and, frankly, worthless) CEO and his little troupe of investors.
Second — support them on social media. Give animators your support when they vent their frustrations, and definitely give them your support when the talks of unionizing begin. Indeed, the best way for all the talent in the industry to ensure workable conditions and fair pay is to unionize — and even if they have to go on a strike like the Writers’ Guild of America did this year — we all have to be patient, understanding and kind to them. Art is made with blood, sweat and tears — but those have to be fluids of love and aspiration, not of oppression and burnout. We can wait for a few months (or even years) to see if the next season of our favorite anime will be done in actually workable conditions, rather than in a horrible sweatshop.
And we should do something about it.
Summary:
Modern animation studios are glorified sweatshops.
Animators are paid by the hour, while all extra proceeds go to investors.
If you can, try to send your financial support directly to the animators.
Support animators on social media, ESPECIALLY when they start to unionize.
Supporting the official release is a good thing. By watching anime on Crunchyroll, Netflix or another official streaming service and buying the official merchandise, you ensure that part of the proceeds goes to the studio behind the show. Still, this support means little to animators themselves beyond their continuous employment. Why?
Animators are not treated well
As we are seeing with the ongoing MAPPA scandal, the working conditions in animation studios in Japan are absolutely horrible. The staff is working under a never ending crunch, with constant overtime resulting in inevitable burnouts. These are not conditions under which a work of art could be lovingly crafted! These are conditions of a British Industrial Revolution era factory — so it’s not surprising that many employees have been going to social media to vent out their frustrations.
It is slightly more surprising to see that they are met with ridicule, scorn and hate from the community. These are the people that make our favorite stories a reality, and if they are facing trouble — and especially trouble from their higher ups — we need to stand with them, not against them!
Supporting the official release helps marginally
You would’ve thought that the actual people behind Jujutsu Kaisen’s fantastic adaptation are earning well from the show’s success. Sadly, they are not. In Japan, animators earn an average annual salary of 2,846,592 yen — all while the overall average salary in Japan is 6,170,000 yen, more than twice their amount! Despite their backbreaking work, animators are severely underpaid — and their salaries don’t depend on the success of the product!
Most anime studio staff are paid by the hour. This, of course, means that all the extra cash the worldwide audience is throwing at their product doesn’t really go to them — no, it goes to their higher ups. The company CEO, the board of directors, the investors — the people who did no actual work to make these stories come true, yet are profiting from them the most. Oh, of course, if a studio doesn’t receive any money, it closes and all those creative minds are thrown to the wind, so we HAVE to keep supporting them. But throwing more cash at them is not THE way to help, sadly.
What can be done?
First of all, if you want to financially support the animators making your favorite anime — look them up. If they have a Patreon, a Fanbox, a Kofi, or their equivalents, you could send your financial support to them directly, bypassing any greedy (and, frankly, worthless) CEO and his little troupe of investors.
Second — support them on social media. Give animators your support when they vent their frustrations, and definitely give them your support when the talks of unionizing begin. Indeed, the best way for all the talent in the industry to ensure workable conditions and fair pay is to unionize — and even if they have to go on a strike like the Writers’ Guild of America did this year — we all have to be patient, understanding and kind to them. Art is made with blood, sweat and tears — but those have to be fluids of love and aspiration, not of oppression and burnout. We can wait for a few months (or even years) to see if the next season of our favorite anime will be done in actually workable conditions, rather than in a horrible sweatshop.
