Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
291–300 of 365 posts
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Western animators aren't paid that terribly, just anime animators, and only some of them. But part of the compromise that Western animation does to be more productive is that it all looks bad. There's a fake-anime style Superman cartoon on I saw that has the artistic quality of maybe a Japanese elementary schooler. And then Netflix makes animated sex comedies that look like old Flash cartoons.
Since you mention Western animation and Netflix. Have you seen Blue Eyed Samurai? Amazing show and it has a beautiful style that looks like it's hand drawn and Japanese, but it's actually French made CGI. I suspect that even this industry can be disrupted by technology.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#293Anime is a $25B industry in terms of revenue , but that doesn't actually imply anything in particular about whether there's any profit in it. I see people make this sort of mistake all the time, and it bugs me. In this particular case, I think the appropriate reaction is very different if the anime industry is wildly profitable vs losing money as a whole, but the article is happy to throw revenue numbers around in th…
If your industry is making $25B and there's no profit, your industry is not very efficient. I've been part of working with licensed content, so not actually in the production side from actually animating. However, just from the interaction with them in that manner, you can tell they are not working in anything that would make you think they are doing things efficiently at all. It only seems that would percolate throu…
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#294All hit-driven industries, TV, movies, toys, games, anime, etc... need to be forced to pay the people who make them royalties. Money is always tight most of the time, but when someone makes a hit they need legal protection to a fair share of the huge profits.
Nothing is technically stopping an animator to go and do their own thing. It's just a hugely difficult and expensive undertaking that requires a decent amount of investment. Especially nowadays you could put it on YouTube, but it probably wouldn't be worth their while.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#295While 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…
> 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…
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#296While 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…
No no and no. Companies will find a way to make things work even if labour costs more. Every company and neo liberal says that same thing about regulation, employee wages, tax increases .... Funnily enough when those same regulations/wage increases/taxes come in they do not leave the market ... Strange. Edit: clarity Companies can and will adapt.
But socialists never think about this stuff. They just pretend there are no downsides to central control of prices.
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Employees also do not have a right to any particular career. That's nice that people have a dream to make anime for a living. I hope they get to realize it. But the world does not owe them a particular wage for what they want to do just because it's a job that they want. If you can't make enough money doing a certain job, maybe go get a different job then.
If a job needs doing by a human at all, then that human does indeed deserve a reasonable baseline which allows them to exist and even do so with reasonable dignity.
As time goes on and jobs are done by machines, and there are fewer and fewer jobs that require a human, then the output and ownership of those machines simply should one way or another be distributed enough to have the same effect.
All they have to do to earn that is not be being a criminal right at that moment.
And this extends to people who can't do anything obviously productive too. Even a sick old grandma doing nothing but telling stories to kids for one hour a week is productive, and we have no excuse not to provide for even the ones who can't even do that.
Because even if "the Earth is a life boat", we don't exist in an environment of hardship with fixed and insufficient resources where there just isn't enough food and building material and energy to go around.
There simply is no excuse for the way we treat some people. They didn't do anything wrong enough to deserve it, and it is not forced by physical limits.
Talking about what value someone provides to earn their existence is just a way to rationalize taking advantage of others. None of this equates to "I will be forced to spend 20 years learning medicine to give my time away for free to bums!" But even if it did, why is that a bad thing exactly? Because it's what, like slavery? You mean, slavery is bad after all?
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you use your car only couple of days a week, should you be taxed more on your car than someone who uses theirs every day of the week? What about a piano you haven’t practiced on for a few years? The expensive ski boots you haven’t touched since high school?
Maybe, but we can at least start with the more fundamental resources that have to be shared amongst people and are in limited quantities, such as land. Driving giant pickup trucks for no productive reason also uses up a societal resource, and increases societal risks, so I would not mind seeing extra taxes on those compared to more reasonable methods of transport, and a case could be easily made that all personal veh…
Do you understand that for many people in the world, the car you or at least people in your peer group might drive would be the equivalent of a giant pickup truck to them? Who decides what a reasonable method of transportation is? For example, the bus system is terrible where I live. Am I allowed to have a giant pickup truck under your scheme or should that be taxed the same as if I had a better mass transit system near me? How would you monitor use of my giant pickup truck to be sure I was using it practically in a way that meets your requirements for proper pickup truck usage?
Re: Anime is a $25B industry that pays its animators pennies
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
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