Japan's NHK broadcast station (their equivalent of PBS) recently aired a special episode of
NHK's Close-Up Gendai+ which focused on the abysmal working conditions in the country's anime industry. The recent reports on the anime industry's state of affairs has been a bit doom and gloom for the past few months with the Japanese media focusing on the poor wages earned by animators. See our past coverage:
But all isn't lost as
Sunrise recently launched a new training program that provides "decent pay" for trainees in light of the fact that room and board is covered.
Studio Ghibli is also paying an above average wage for assistants for the legendary Hayao Miyazaki as he looks to complete a new feature film.
Still, the latest report from NHK highlights the divide between Production Committees (the investors who fund anime adaptations) and anime studios - with the former holding all of the IP licenses and merchandising rights while the latter accepts a pre-negotiated sum. The Production Comitte accepts the risk of an anime being a flop while the anime studio recieves their pay regardless of whether a title is commercially successful. As such, when an anime breaks out, the Production Committees keep virtually all of the profits. The anime industry is currently valued at $18.2 billion USD, but the nature of funding for anime means the profits just don't trickle down to the anime studios. A graph shown on the program represents that disparity [see below
via ANN], with red representing money going to the Production Committees and yellow representing the earnings for the anime studio.
The Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) reported on the program that they have conducted a study which revealed that animator work an average of 11 hrs/ per day with only about four days off per month. However, Polygon Pictures was presented as a studio that's bucking the trend, with generally better working conditions and pay, highlighted by its policy of turning off its lights at 10 PM to force workers to go home.