By YUZURU TAKANO and KIYOHIDE INADA:

`Unless something is done, Japanese anime will be ruined.’ KOICHI MURATA President of animation company Oh Production
For all the fat profits that Japanese animation generates from merchandise these days, the wallets of the animators who piece the cartoons together are as thin as the cels they painstakingly paint.

To take one example, the worldwide market for the video games and merchandise related to the late-1990s cartoon series Pokemon is worth some 3 trillion yen.

Yet an animator, toiling away on cels in a tiny Tokyo studio, might be fortunate to pull in just 50,000 yen a month.

Much of the recent interest in, and the money for, Japanese animation, popularly known as anime, comes from abroad, notes Kiyokazu Matsumoto, president of Dream Ranch Inc., a Sony Music Group company.

Matsumoto said one U.S. toy manufacturer offered his company about $10 million (about 1.1 billion yen) for the rights to market merchandise featuring the characters of an animated cartoon his company hadn’t even completed. The figure was particularly eye-popping for Matsumoto because it was 100 times what animated films earn on average from broadcasting rights in Japan.

The offer came just as Matsumoto and his company were starting to map out an animation based on illustrations by an artist whose works often appear on comic book covers.

Dream Ranch has since neared a deal with a Hollywood company to turn the story into a full-length animation.

In recent years, the trend has been to turn cartoon characters into merchandise and video games as quickly as possible.

It was the Pokemon series in the late 1990s that revolutionized the conventional notion that animation was first and foremost for the domestic market and the overseas market a mere side business.

Pokemon video games, stuffed dolls and other merchandise proved an instant success when they hit the U.S. market. About 120 million Pokemon video games have so far been shipped around the world. The Pokemon cartoon has aired in 68 nations.

The Tokyo-based company that manages the Pokemon copyright has licensing contracts with about 200 companies overseas and about 70 in Japan. About 2,000 items, including stationery and toys, now feature Pokemon characters.

Of course, international acclaim for Japanese animation is nothing new, having started with “Astro Boy” in the early 1960s.

More recently, Hayao Miyazaki’s “Spirited Away” won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 2002 and then won Best Animated Feature Film at the Academy Awards the following year.

Mamoru Oshii’s “Innocence” was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May and will open at theaters in 10 major U.S. cities this fall.

The creators of “Innocence” are also fully aware of the ripeness of the overseas market for Japanese animation. In part to channel the animation toward the American mainstream, they spent about 2 billion yen making the film, an enormous amount in Japan for an animated feature. A sum of a similar level was also spent to make “Spirited Away.” Still, this is nowhere near what Hollywood spends on animated films, which cost the equivalent of about 10 billion yen each.

The sponsors of “Innocence” include major Japanese companies as well as the Disney group.

The producer of “Innocence,” Katsuji Morishita of the studio Production I.G., notes, “Unlike conventional anime, we aimed for Hollywood from the beginning.”

Because Japanese animation creators have nowhere near the funds of Disney animators, they must make do with fewer frames and instead concentrate on creating appealing story lines. They also have at their disposal perhaps the largest number of comic books in the world to tap into for inspiration.

“Japanese animations tell good stories and are popular overseas, too,” says Yasuki Hamano, a media professor at the University of Tokyo. “They have a lot of potential to be competitive overseas.”

At the same time, however, the small subcontractors that have made Japanese animation such a big success are now fast losing out to competitors in South Korea and China, where labor costs are lower.

Many of the 70 or so subcontractors clustered in Tokyo’s Suginami Ward are in a bind. Even as the cost of rent and paying animators rises, there has been no corresponding rise in production budgets.

One of those feeling the pinch is Oh Production, which created the cels for popular animations like “Arupusu no Shojo Haiji” and “Chibi Maruko-chan.”

Disheartened by a monthly salary that tops out at 50,000 yen, a 26-year-old animator who joined the production team a year ago said, “Sometimes I want to give up-I never imagined it would be like this.” Only with parental financial support can the animator make ends meet. A single cel earns an animator 200 yen, yet might, if the image is complicated, take a whole day to make.

Of the approximately 440 animation production companies in the country, about 70 percent are small, with 30 workers or fewer, according to one estimate.

Such companies receive around 10 million yen for a single job from advertisers and sponsors. Sometimes, it isn’t enough to cover costs.

The real money comes from broadcast rights, which are usually held by TV stations, publishers and major animation production companies. Consequently, the small subcontractors do not share in the windfall from thriving sales of merchandise featuring animated characters.

Many young animators, fed up with the low pay, quit in a few years. And with more and more cels getting painted in South Korea and China, many in the domestic industry worry about the “hollowing out” of the animation industry.

“Unless something is done, Japanese anime will be ruined,” laments Oh Production President Koichi Murata. (IHT/Asahi: June 2,2004) (06/02)

Anime Work in Japan / Why anime is being spirited away

The success of recent Japanese animation is masking a crisis in the industry, reports Colin Joyce

The global reputation of Japan’s anime industry has never been higher, and at first glance it would appear to be in rude health. Hayao Miyazaki’s Oscar-winning Spirited Away became Japan’s biggest-ever grossing film in 2001, before winning over audiences and critics in Europe and the US. In his Kill Bill films, Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the genre. And in the opening weekend of Miyazaki’s new film, Howl’s Moving Castle, a record 1.1 million Japanese crammed into cinemas nationwide. It has since been seen at home by nearly 10 million people, and has made Japan the only country in which The Incredibles has been kept out of the top slot.

Oscar winner: Miyazaki’s Spirited Away

Yet Japan’s animators are full of gloom. They fear that the future is bleak and that the success enjoyed by Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli, which makes his films, is actually masking a sad decline. Industry experts say that not only is there a dearth of creative talent on a par with Miyazaki, but the overall standard of animators has fallen over the past decade as low pay and poor working conditions force many to quit.

Miyazaki’s repeated claims that he is going to retire have become a running joke in Japan. But he is now 63 years old and it is hard to think of anyone who could come close to filling his shoes.

“He can’t be replaced, he’s a one-off,” says Jonathan Clements, a British anime expert and co-author of the Anime Encyclopedia. “Miyazaki isn’t 100 per cent of Ghibli, but when he goes, the party is over.”

Few would claim Howl’s Moving Castle is anything but a triumph. The story, based on the book of the same name by British author Diana Wynne Jones, tells of a young girl named Sophie who is turned into an old lady. The surreal landscapes that are Miyazaki’s hallmark are as brilliant as ever. The work has already won an Osella award for technical excellence at the Venice Film Festival, and will be released in 50 countries. The distributors talk of reaching 40 million worldwide.

The creative and commercial success enjoyed by Ghibli, with a run of films going back to My Neighbor Totoro in 1988, has afforded it a unique breathing space. For other studios, however, commercial pressures force work to be done at breakneck speed and on shoestring budgets. Veterans of the industry say quality has been sacrificed as television cartoon episodes are made for as little as £10,000.

For the animator, starting pay can be as low as £300 a month without benefits. They are often paid a pound per page, a rate that has not risen in 20 years. Producing 15 pages a day is no easy feat for a beginner, meaning 12-hour days and six-day weeks are the norm.

Anime classic: Neon Genesis Evangelion

Many young animators rely on parental support to put them through animation schools and continue to need financial help just to afford to work in Tokyo, the world’s most expensive city. Yet, remarkably, anime has little problem attracting recruits. At the Nippon Engineering College in Tokyo, dozens of students pore over desks painstakingly producing page after page of drawings. Most say they are aware that pay is low but desperately want to work in the industry they fell in love with as children through cartoons such as Doraemon, the blue talking cat, and Battle of the Planets, which was shown in the UK in the late 1970s.

Masataka Kawai, a teacher at the school, worked for eight years at one of Japan’s best-known studios. He says that he often slept under his desk for up to three weeks, not noticing the changing of the seasons until his latest deadline had passed.

“Students need good powers of observation and have to be good drawers. But they also must have passion,” says Kawai. “To stick it out in anime, you can’t just like drawing. You have to love it.”

But reality often bites as animators reach their thirties, by which time they typically earn around a third of the average pay for Japanese their age and at lower hourly rates than supermarket clerks.

Yoshitaka Ogata of the Anime Union, which campaigns for better working conditions, says: “However keen they are when they come in, the reality is that they cannot live on the pay. There are animators with 10 years’ experience on less than £11,000 a year. In the end, they have to quit.”

More and more animation work is now outsourced to cheaper countries such as South Korea, China and India. This has led to a hollowing out of talent in Japan and the end of the in-house production system, where people mastered each element of the process as they worked their way up from the bottom.

Clements believes that the soul of anime is at stake. “Anime is, by definition, from Japan, but it’s only a matter of time before the number of foreign contributors tips the balance, and what used to be anime becomes plain old cartoons,” he says. “It may ultimately remove much of what makes anime appeal to its current foreign audience base: its exoticism.”

·  ‘Howl’s Moving Castle’ will be released in the UK in the autumn ·  Image from Neon Genesis Evangelion courtesy of ADV Films

Anime Work in Japan / The Hard Realities of Make-Believe

In anime, the hours are long and the pay paltry. But for many Japanese, it’s still a dream job.

TOKYO — The starting pay can be less than $500 a month in this, the world’s most expensive city, but becoming an illustrator in Japan’s famed anime industry remains the fantasy of thousands of young Japanese.

In scores of cramped studios, largely clustered in two small districts of western Tokyo, young illustrators lean over desks, producing page after page of drawings that eventually will be turned into cartoons for broadcast in Japan and, increasingly, overseas.

Despite the huge popularity of the industry and its growing cachet internationally, even big studios typically pay recruits between $1,200 and $1,800 a month. Their counterparts in Tokyo office jobs earn up to twice as much, including benefits such as subsidized accommodation and train passes. Even convenience-store work pays $8 an hour.

Although “anime” simply means animation, the product differs from U.S. cartoons and animated films in that it is not geared mostly to children. Like its printed counterpart, manga comics, anime is a diverse field, producing everything from cute children’s programs such as “Sailor Moon” — a superhero schoolgirl with impossibly long legs and big eyes — to violent and sexual images for Japan’s otaku, or “nerd,” subculture.

Many foreign fans have been won over by the imagination and intelligent story lines in the genre’s most celebrated works. Others are drawn in simply by the vivid colors, fantastic characters and surreal landscapes common in anime.

Masaru Muto, a 20-year-old student, is among those willing to accept low pay to be part of the phenomenon. He will start as an intern at a Tokyo television animation company this month.

“Of course, my parents would prefer me to find a regular job, but I wanted to draw since childhood, and my fascination with animated films became deeper and deeper as I went through school,” he said. “I decided that whatever happened, I wanted to give it a try.”

Like many anime devotees, Muto is an admirer of director Hayao Miyazaki, who created the acclaimed films “Spirited Away” and “Princess Mononoke.” “To become so great, Miyazaki had to work hard,” Muto said, “so I think I will have to fight and to suffer even more than him to become famous.”

But many of the young enthusiasts quickly become disillusioned with the long hours and meager salaries. Yoshitake Ogata of the Anime Union, which represents freelance illustrators, said: “However keen they are when they come in, the reality is that they cannot live on the pay. There are animators with 10 years’ experience earning less than $20,000 a year. In the end, they have to quit.”

The union’s informal surveys suggest that 10% of the animators have no health insurance and that as many as one-quarter haven’t joined the state pension program, although it is meant to be compulsory. Often, anxious parents pay for their children’s health insurance and, in some cases, lodging.

The main factor holding down pay is the availability of cheap labor in East Asia. Japanese production companies now rely on illustrators in South Korea, the Philippines and China to do much of their routine work. Ironically, just as Japanese anime is becoming more famous overseas, it is becoming less Japanese.

Nippon Engineering College in Tokyo is one of several high-tech institutions in Japan that train aspiring animators, including Muto. The school attracts technically gifted students who spend two years learning the art of creating anime and character-based computer games. Most graduates go on to work in the industry.

But teachers stress that talent alone is not enough.

“Of course students need strong powers of observation and have to be good drawers, but they also need to have passion,” teacher Masataka Kawai said. “To stick it out in anime, you can’t just like drawing, you have to love it.”

Kawai worked for eight years in one of Japan’s most famous studios. During deadline periods, he would barely leave it for nearly three weeks on end, sleeping under his desk. It is widely believed that most animators work 12 hours a day or more, often working weekends as well.

A 30-minute cartoon typically requires 3,500 pages of drawings. New illustrators usually draw the movements in between the “key frames” done by their seniors. A team of illustrators typically produces a cartoon in about three months. The contribution of any one illustrator might last just 10 seconds for an action scene or as long as 10 minutes when movement is limited, as in a conversation scene.

Despite the long hours, Kawai has happy memories of his days as an illustrator.

“There’s no doubt it is hard work, but when you see one of your cuts and it goes well, that is real happiness,” he said. “Personally, I felt happy when a small girl from my neighborhood said she enjoyed a cartoon I had worked on.”

Many illustrators say they want to give children the same joy they experienced watching cartoons such as “Doraemon,” featuring a talking cat who looks after his hapless schoolboy owner, and “Gatchaman,” about spaceship superheroes. Today, cartoons such as “Pokemon” reach a worldwide audience.

Tokyo’s Suginami ward, where 71 of Japan’s estimated 430 anime studios are based, has expressed concern about the damage the working conditions could do to its most famous industry. The ward recently launched a program to sponsor apprentices to work for six months as animators.

But many in the industry say anime’s crisis lies not in hiring talent, but in retaining it.

“All the famous directors, including Miyazaki, developed their skills working on anime for television. But now the industry isn’t rearing animators with the talent to create new characters or the experienced hands to draw the crucial key frames,” Ogata said. “The conditions are so poor that the next generation is not coming through.”

Anime Work in Japan / I Wanna Be an Anime Artist in Japan

I can’t tell you how many times I have read that on various boards on the net, from people who know very little about what they are talking about. I really hate to be a wet blanket here, but unless your dad has a couple of million stashed away and you don’t have to work a day in your life, you’d better start thinking more realistically.

First off, as far as work in Japan goes, Japanese only hire foreigners when they can’t find what it takes from among their own. For most, this means teaching English in a conversation school somewhere. And the fact that Japan’s own stodgy memorization-based education system and widespread stereotype that English instruction must come from a native speaker certainly works in your favor. But even that is a dead end job, unless you’re lucky enough to find work as a university professor.

The following is an article from March 2004, and shows the realities of the anime industry. To find a career that one can truly take pleasure in is everyone’s dream, but in this case, you’d better keep your nose in your textbooks for a real job.

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Hiroshi Takaya

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