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Are Japanese anime studios in hot water? Date: 11/30/2009 |
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With Japanese anime studios wrestling with longer hours, slimmer budgets, and growing (sometimes government-backed) competition from studios in China and South Korea, the Wall Street Journal has reported that dissatisfaction is becoming more pervasive than ever. Here?s a highlight: Morale is low. Industry executives estimate nine out of 10 new workers quit within three years, with the many talented employees leaving for better-paying jobs in areas like videogames. A survey conducted this year for industry executives showed that animators in their 20s made just 1.1 million yen ($11,000) a year on average, while those in their 30s earned 2.1 million yen. Yasuna Tadanaga, 23 years old, left her position as an animator at a small Tokyo studio last year, only six months after landing what she thought was her dream job. To meet deadlines, Ms. Tadanaga worked 13 to 14 hours each day. During one month, she was given just one day off. ?The unspoken understanding was we worked on weekends because we loved the work,? Ms. Tadanaga said. ?We had to have a very good reason to take a day off.? But what can that mean for anime, which has been getting some critical buzz over the past decade with works like Ponyo and the Academy Award-winning Spirited Away, not to mention inspired work in U.S. programming ranging from Teen Titans to even Justice League Unlimited? Competition is always a good thing, and seeing that these animators are largely living at home with their parents to make ends meet just does not compute when it comes to the sort of intensive labor the job provides. Click here to read the rest of the WSJ piece. This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 24th, 2009 at 3:28 pm and is filed under News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. |
| Source: Newsarama |
