Then who’s making money?
Consumers, who get cheap anime.
Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
211–220 of 365 posts
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. A similar argument was used in favor of perpetuating slavery prior to the civil war. > People just have to accept that means the industry will shrink dramatically. So many things will just never get made. I've accepted that. Now let's pay people fairly for their time and skill. > That also means far fewer people will get to become animators. They’ll h…
>> If people were paid fairly, most productions would be untenable. >A similar argument was used in favor of perpetuating slavery prior to the civil war. I suspect the end result here will actually be fairly comparable to post-slavery agriculture, in that technology will eliminate a lot of these jobs. Tough to imagine that GenAI doesn't have an enormous impact on anime over the next few years.
>Tough to imagine that GenAI doesn't have an enormous impact on anime over the next few years.
It depends a lot on the culture there.
1) there are actual labor laws in Japan, so they can't just cut off 90% of their workforce at the snap of the finger
2) there is a much stronger culture of conformity in Japan. So it is much easier to shame a company when getting negative PR in Japan and those complaints can overcome raw profits.
Also, tech wise AI is at least 5 years out from anything animated. What I've seen in motion so far is extremely crude.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, there is no such thing as a "fair pay". All of it is driven by demand and supply, always, except when regulations or external factors somehow break things. Second, of course increased costs of production lead to consequences for end users or people who buy the content. We see that all of the time in every industry.
Businesses do not have an inherent right to exist. If you can't pay a living wage, comply with regulations, and be profitable, your business model is not valid and your business should fail and close. Predictions of dire consequences rarely pan out. Fast food employees in Seattle are earning $15-20/+ per hour and prices did not double - in fact they're not significantly higher than in neighboring counties with lower…
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Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#214While 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…
People are paid fairly, they accept the wages they’re being paid. In the alternative world you describe, many/most wouldn’t have a job (at least not doing what they enjoy).
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
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; i…
The fact is that most people aren't enthusiasts for every thing they participate in. And things like big super hero movies aren't targeting the cinemaphiles to begin with.
It's always unfortunate hearing commentors thinking "people are tired of Marvel" when seeing low sales for The Marvel's, when the reality is much more boring external factors like Disney+ cannabalizing sales and cinemas still not truly recovering from the pandemic.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#216Then 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,…
Code for America's union ratified their first contract last year. Kickstarter United ratified their first contract in 2022. I myself was in the Glitch union when we won voluntary recognition several years ago. (We had layoffs unrelated to the union and more related to a bad monetization scheme and high costs, during which the union negotiated increased severance and health insurance coverage vs we were initially offe…
Just wanted to say thank you, this is interesting to hear. Is there really no downside to unionizing? It seems too good to be true, or that it must come with some kind of catch. But enough people here have said nope, no catch, that I’m starting to reconsider whether it’s possible.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
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; i…
Planet Money did an episode about this, The Spiderman Problem: https://www.npr.org/2022/01/28/1076531156/the-spider-man-pro...
Short story is that Marvel licensed Spiderman for cheap with a clause that Sony could keep the license so long as they produced a movie every N years.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not convinced that workers shouldn't have any rights or protections. That sounds like a pretty extreme viewpoint. Or just one coming from an employer's perspective where I can see why you might desire no limits on treatments of workers.
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GP says in comment to a post about regulations and paying a minimum wage to workers which I interpret they mean certain workers don’t have the right to worker protections because they work/want to work a sought-after job.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry, all western animation looks bad? Such sweeping generalizations, and so wrong. Exhibit A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_NIMH Exhibit B. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince_of_Egypt Exhibit C. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Into_the_Spider-Ve...
Two of those three are over 30 years old and the other is a movie with a $90M budget. I was talking about TV shows. Though I've heard things like Castlevania are good, haven't seen it though.
The animation in Castlevania is in fact very good.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#220I bet a lot of people are thinking "Why don't they do their own animes" but this neglects the reality that all distribution pipelines for any kind of media have been totally monopolized. The anime creator has zero bargaining power over the media monopolist.