Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

hitregbroke.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 365 posts

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#181

Post by bane »

Apreche wrote: post #9

While the industry as a whole makes a lot, the majority of individual anime and manga make next to nothing. It’s a few very popular properties that make all the dough. If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many. But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble. As an anime and manga fan, I actually…

It's a supply/demand problem. There's an endless number of of people who want to be animators, but relatively few positions. So the pay is crap.

This further reduces the budget of productions so that all kinds of junk can be produced at rock bottom prices and still have a chance at making money.

And let's be honest, the vast vast majority of anime is utter crap.

If things were different however, anime might end up as a more hit-driven industry the way Hollywood productions (or heck even startups) are.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#182

Post by dimgl »

autoexec wrote: post #137
sergiotapia wrote: post #75

Just like videogames and movies/tv. There's an infinite, ever refreshing revolving door of fresh meat for the grinder. And people want to be part of it regardless. With such conditions there will never be an increase to pay. It's just the way things will be in these segments - forever!

Just like with movies/tv you can make a lot more progress with unions.

I don't think that necessarily applies. Over time movie stars tend to become their own products and movies sell because of their involvement. I just don't see the same thing happening with animators aside from the most prestigious.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#183

Post by jxf »

jandrese wrote: post #178
chasing wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "if we paid people fairly things would be prohibitively expensive" argument is a terrible one, just to note. First, it rarely seems to actually be the case since the requirement that employees be paid fairly mostly just drives away low-value efforts. It's also an attitude that, if taken to its logical extreme, demands society have an underpaid underclass that suffers so the rest of us can have nice things.

I always like when small business complain that "payroll is the majority of our expenses", but when you look at the expenses it is something like: Income: $100,000/month Expenses: $50,000/month Payroll: Cashier: $290/month Cashier: $290/month Cashier: $290/month Janitor: $290/month Security: $290/month Manager: $1,000/month Owner: $45,000/month "How can I keep my business afloat? We've already cut the staff down to t…

$290/month? If those cashiers are working 100 hours a month they're making about a third of (US federal) minimum wage.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#184

Post by autoexec »

dimgl wrote: post #182
autoexec wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like with movies/tv you can make a lot more progress with unions.

I don't think that necessarily applies. Over time movie stars tend to become their own products and movies sell because of their involvement. I just don't see the same thing happening with animators aside from the most prestigious.

TV writers, or even the folks doing lighting and holding microphones don't gain prestige like movie stars do either, but they're in unions which allows them them get better wages.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#185

Post by rcfox »

andirk wrote: post #84
nextworddev wrote: post #65

Then who’s making money?

Probably the Japanimation upper brass. I don't watch it but most of the characters look identical with the good guys being Japanese but looking like white Americans: large eyes, fair skin, tall, voluptuous. Maybe it's easy to find those animators since their skillset is the same across the board.

Anime characters are cats. https://i.redd.it/i6awe5ngp5cb1.jpg

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#186

Post by toast0 »

madrox wrote: post #174
Apreche wrote: post #9

While the industry as a whole makes a lot, the majority of individual anime and manga make next to nothing. It’s a few very popular properties that make all the dough. If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. There would be just a few anime per year instead of many. But also, how would the popular ones come to be? Every new property would be a huge gamble. As an anime and manga fan, I actually…

This is, basically, what happened to movies. Because of that, you'll see very few risks, and the people who get to be creative tend to be the ones who have an established track record. People have been complaining that the theater is full of sequels and superhero movies for decades.

> People have been complaining that the theater is full of sequels and superhero movies for decades.

Yeah, but the thing is people go to see superhero movies and sequels and remakes. And have been for a long time.

When people stop going to superhero movies, they'll stop getting made. Except for Spider-Man; Sony is going to keep rebooting that and doing another series of three movies until they are bought by Disney; if they lose that license by not making a film in time, they'll never get it back.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#187

Post by xboxnolifes »

charcircuit wrote: post #160
astrange wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You learned nonsense right-wing propaganda.

Even so, it is true and does happen. Though I suspect it is less about pushing an ideology and more for trying to appeal to an audience of the localizer's peers. Either way the end result is that it repulsed a demographic of the distribution platform's target audience. Beyond that official translations often don't come with honorific, don't bother explaining puns, are not literal translations, try to replace a Japane…

> I would rather there not be an official translation or localization process

Localization isn't just bad subs though. Localization is sometimes unavoidable due to differences in language and the cultural usage of the language. Not everything can be directly translated, as that's not how languages work. Sometimes the only way to avoid localization is to not translate, and then it's no longer a translation.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#188

Post by kiba »

jstarks wrote: post #169
kmeisthax wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vocational awe is a curse. If you have an endless supply of people willing to work pennies then the industry will build itself around paying them pennies. This does not mean that this is the only way you can build an animation industry - just that this is the path Toei and Sunrise took. The amount of money that goes into the industry is not static. The original linked article specifically cites cases in which members…

> As for animators having to find new work... good? Isn’t this a paternalistic point of view? Why do you know better than the animators who are accepting these jobs? Who are you to tell them that their career choice is wrong?

We have regulations like minimum wages and other labor regulation rules to prevent abuse.

Unless you want to say that getting paid a minimum wage paternalistic?

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#189

Post by toast0 »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #6

Then by definition, that’s what their time is worth. It should alarm animators that they’re paid so little. It alarmed me as a gamedev when I saw how much webdevs earned in comparison. It’s partly why I left, and I was much happier for it. No amount of legislation or shame articles will change the reality that market forces have profound effects, and these effects are difficult to break. Unions try. To my knowledge,…

> but I’m ignorant of the art world; maybe they have one

The Film Actors Guild is a union in the art world with pretty significant market power.

Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies

#190

Post by astrange »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #187
charcircuit wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even so, it is true and does happen. Though I suspect it is less about pushing an ideology and more for trying to appeal to an audience of the localizer's peers. Either way the end result is that it repulsed a demographic of the distribution platform's target audience. Beyond that official translations often don't come with honorific, don't bother explaining puns, are not literal translations, try to replace a Japane…

> I would rather there not be an official translation or localization process Localization isn't just bad subs though. Localization is sometimes unavoidable due to differences in language and the cultural usage of the language. Not everything can be directly translated, as that's not how languages work. Sometimes the only way to avoid localization is to not translate, and then it's no longer a translation.

Other reasons to do it are:

* translating a joke "literally" makes it no longer a joke and so no longer an authentic translation

* the original creators want their work to sell to people who weren't already prepared to like it

Post reply on HN