I feel this needs to be made aware of on a global scale. If you've even seen and liked one piece of anime regardless of any studio, I urge you to spread the word about this. I want to be a part in changing things and I think it starts with the whole world knowing.


I have often wondered how much Japanese animators make in terms of money and was able to find out from this site. [link]
(It's in Japanese)


So many people watch and love anime but I don't think enough people know what kind of sacrifices, and financial hardships are involved.


A brief "who am I?"
- I was in born in Canada to Japanese immigrants
- I am an animation student at Seneca College in Ontario, Canada that recently completed 2 years of traditional animation and will be learning 2 semesters of 3D animation starting in fall
-inpiration to become animator goes back to works like Nausicaa by Miyazaki Hayao, Gauche the Cellist by Takahata Isao

I knew that "the payment they receive in general is very low", but I honestly didn't know "HOW low" it meant. Till now. I've tried finding out through searches way before I stumbled across the site mentioned above.



The Site

The person who wrote the premise for the site above is Directtor Ashida Toyoo ( 芦田 豊雄 あしだ とよお ). It is a littlbe bit unclear if he runs the organization or if he wrote ONLY the premise (but he is for sure an active member). He mentions how the goal is to make work conditions, terms, pay and benefits better for the animators and board artists. It is the beginnings of a national union. He also said how the older, more experienced people in the companies are like "oh the young ones these days have no guts". Director Ashida argues that it's not a matter of guts, it's the hopelessness in front of them that drives them away to quit. The following illustrates the hardhips in terms of money earned and time invested.

Aside: Director Ashida has done work on the following: Heidi, Yamato, Fist of the North Star.



The Figures

I will translate some of the statistics.
I have changed the currency into Canadian Dollars by using the conversion 100 Yen = $1.00

Storyboard:
30 minute tv show takes 3 weeks to cut at the earliest.
Money the boarder gets per episode: $2200-$2300
$700 per week
$2,800 per month
$33,600 per year
That's if you don't take a single day (even weekends) off which is impossible.
Storyboarder is probably the closest position to director.
They get no paid vacation, no health insurance, basically no benefits at all, no guarantee you can save for retirement.

My mother makes about the same per year working as a cashire at a cafeteria. She gets paid vacation time, recieves all kinds of benefits.
She only has a high school education.



KEY animator:
30 dollars per CUT. Not per drawing. Per CUT. And no, I'm not talking about HAIR CUTS which probably might cost more than 30 dollars these days.
1 cut = 1 scene
1 scene= a shot where the angle and background does not change (though the bg can pan, or truck in/out)

The average scene length is said to be 4 seconds.
IN Japanese animation there are 8 drawings per second when an object is clearly showing movement (i.e. not stills nor held cells)
-so 32 drawings on average per cut.

Key Animator must rough out the scene and then clean it up.
- and probably a lot more that I'm not aware of knowing how crazy some of these animators are (some do everything from Inbetweens to Key to colour)
-They say most key animators finish 2 cuts per day at most, working 10-15 hours per day in order to put out good quality
- these are FINISHED CUTS.

SO...

-$30 per cut x 2 per day
-$60 per day if things go well.
-$420 per week
-$1800 per month
-$21,600 per year if you don't take any days off (i.e. even working on weekendsand holidays) which again is impossible

Some cuts go for $200 a piece but that doesn't mean the company is being generous. That means that cut involves a lot more drawings and takes several days to finish - i.e. multiple characters, complex fight sequences, etc. etc. these days, everything is done on separate layers. If you have 3 characters moving in the same scene, you are drawing probably 100 drawings in that one scene depending on the complexity of the movement of the individual characters.



Inbetweeners
-they are the newest members of the company
-they are paid per drawing. I do not know the exact figure but I've seen companies show it by XXYen. I think XX literally means two digits. Remember that 100 yen=1 canadian dollar.
-the site mentioned they make maybe $10,000 a year working 10-15 hour days without a lot of days off on weekends.
-Most can not get by without the support from family members

-It is said that 50% of the noob quit within 6 months. 70% quit within 12 months. This is not because they don't love it. This is not because they can't draw or can't meet deadlines. It's because they can not survive in such conditions OR because something serious has happened to their health.




Comparisson
For comparisson: Minimum wage in Canada is 7.50 (maybe it's gone up a little more lately). If you work every single day of the year without taking any days off but no over time, (which is impossible), then you get:
$7.5x8hr=60 per day
$420 per 7 day week
$1680 per month
$20 160 per year


IN Japan, Rent is anywhere from 700 dollars a month unless you share with someone. Cost of living is much higher over there than here (Canada). I once saw 1 quarter of a watermelon go for $6 (that was what I saw 10 years ago).




Artist vs Trained Professional
This isn't about aritst not making money. Anyone can theoretically call themselves an artist. Anyone can grab a beat up old bike, paint it yellow and pink, attach it to a lamp post with barbed wire and call it a work of art and potentially get millions.

It's more about people with specialized training being severly underpaid. These people are TRAINED to draw the human figure in under 5 minutes, they know how the human body works in terms of motion, they know how to create the illusion of life. That's gotta be worth way more than $5 per hour.

Honestly, for me, drawing 60 clean line drawings of the human figure or any object per day is doable if they are JUST drawings that have no relation whatsoever to each other and if I can draw them how ever the hell I want.

These 60 drawings...
-are POSED OUT > animators are constantly acting things out. How do you think they draw those complex movements like fight scenes or people falling or running or doing a very distinct movement?
-all have to WORK in terms of movement and follow certain principles if it's supposed to look RIGHT
-have to maintain volumes and proportions throughout
-have to be ON MODEL (all the characters look the same and can not deviate from each other even if 10 different people are drawing the same character)

Can anyone off the street do this? Highly unlikely. That's why they go to school, paying probably more than $6000 a year for 2-3 years out of their pocket.

And yet according to that key animator salary, they are being paid $5 per hour

If it were any other job here in Canada, there would probably be some kind of legal action.



Closing

Just wanted to put something on the table to think about concerning the artists that draw on average8 drawings to make one second of animation for your favourite Japanese animated series or movie. (it's avg 8 drawings per second over there according to my friends working there). Think of the 100s of PROFESSIONALS that did the drawings, who are so taleneted but are making on average $5 an hour for a show or movie that looks absolutely stunning, or a fight sequence that looked so intense. Bleach, Naruto, Akira, Death Note, Paprika, One Piece, Seirei no Moribito. Doesn't matter the studio or show. They're basically treated pretty much the same. I'm not sure about Ghibli but I don't think it's THAT different...

And if you're wondering.... I still do want to draw this stuff as I'm sure many others out there do as well. The question is will we live a healthy life (I'm not into asking for luxury, just HEALTH and bare minimum necessities)? Will the industry live? Something has to change for the whole industry...