An article, published by the ABC in July 2009, got me to thinking. The gist of the article is that Westerners aren't paying much for anime, and that so much is being downloaded now for free. Anime workers in Japan are meant to be furious because the former prime minister planned to spend millions on an anime museum, whereas the real workers in the industry can't earn a decent living. Work is being outsourced to China, whilst the strict heirarchy in the industry means that young people with talent are having to slave away for 20 years doing boring work before they can express their own creativity. Plus, many small studios are having to create anime porn to pay the bills. The porn is popular with middle-aged Japanese men, but is apparently not easily exportable. Whew - quite a mouthful!The word "crisis" is such a catchy one, especially when used in the title of an article. Almost everything nowadays seems to be on the verge of collapse, if the reports are to be believed. So, let's have a look at some of the points raised in this article and see where it leads us.
Westerners have never paid much for anime, certainly compared to the prices which the poor sods in Japan have to pay. My first trip to Japan was about 13 years ago, in the days before DVDs. A client of mine just had to have the Armitage movie on VHS. I told him it would cost about AUD$120, he said just buy it, which I did. That was $120 for one VHS tape, and that was the going price. A quick look at some Japanese anime prices on the Net shows that now you will pay about 5,000 Yen or so, which is still about AUD$65, and that's with the Aussie dollar being strong now. You also need to be aware of how many episodes there are per disc. It is not at all uncommon for Japanese DVDs to have only 2 episodes per disc.
How is this possible? Because of Japan's extraordinary retail structure, where many hands make a little money along the path from manufacturer to retailer. Don't think that the greedy retailer is making a killing, he's not. He's hardly making anything at all. Unless you are wealthy, the idea of owning a vast collection of anime is almost unheard of in Japan. Most anime fans don't buy, they rent titles from the hundreds of stores which stock anime in all its genres.
Meanwhile, in the West, fanboys and girls moan about the prices which they have to pay; the length of time it takes for a series to be released; the quality of the dubbing blah blah blah. A word of caution to people who have been watching anime for years: try to keep in mind that the kids doing the moaning are just younger versions of you, perhaps 10-15 years younger, maybe more.
It's a bit much to expect teenagers to care about anything other than their own immediate, and obviously extremely important, needs. What interests, and concerns me more, is that so many people seem to think they have some sort of right to view whatever they like, and they want to view it now! The Internet is like a drug to these people. Not so long ago, bragging rights went to the person who had a friend who lived in Japan who recorded episodes of a brand-new anime series which was screening on Japanese televisionand mailedthe videoto their friend in Australia. This isn't fast enough for the "now" generation. Now, you can find sites where you can download the series yourself. It doesn't matter that there may be no subtitles or that the quality is crap, the most important thing is that you can get it now and brag about it to your friends. It also doesn't matter, at all, that the original creators receive no money from any of this downloading.
The logical extension from this self-indulgent, narcissistic view is that I, the fanboy, have a right to view whatever I like, when I like, from wherever I like. I want it now, I can get it for free, therefore I will, and the rest of you can get stuffed. This is theft, pure and simple. Try explaining your "rights" to a shop detective after you pinch something andattempt to leave your local supermarket. He may not be sympathetic to your world view. It is amusing to read the attempted rationalizations from fanboys about their downloading activities: they will "buy the series when it gets released in the West"; the downloads "help to spread word about the series", which will result in increased sales; the owners of the series "make a killing anyway", so what I do doesn't hurt them etc. This is all bullshit. The making of an anime movie or series involves a lot of blood, sweat and tears, and money, none of which has been provided by the viewer. The rights belong to the people who funded the project. It is their right to decide how the show will be disseminated, to whom, and when. Companies in other countries can enter into arrangements about how the show will be presented, in exchange for which the creators receive upfront payments and/or royalties from the proceeds of sales. Lacking a studio system like in the West, many of the small Japanese anime companies which are created to make a show or series receive very little in upfront payments. Royalties form a large part of their ongoing income.
I was privileged to visit Studio Ghibli on one of my first trips to Japan. They were working on the post production of Princess Mononoke at the time. I got to see the studio where the animators worked, as well as Miyazaki's desk (full of papers, cigarette butts and a hundred and one other knick knacks - lovely!). The man himself was in the sound recording studio. I still kick myself that I forgot to bring my camera (can you believe it!). A photo of Miyazaki's desk would have been priceless. I also saw the canteen, the walls of which were full of framed, original setups from all their movies. A wet dream for an animation fan like me. The studio building itself was not large or ostentatious. You could very easily have walked right past it without pausing. How different is that from a Western studio, which is often the size of a small suburb?
Yet, Studio Ghibli was the only real animation studio in Japan. A place wherefilm makerscould work full-time and have security of employment. This is still rare in Japan. Almost all animation staff work from job to job, often in tiny "studios" which are nothing more than office space. These journeymen and women artists earn very little in return for spending 12-16 hours a day, slaving away at the thousands of drawings which are necessary for any animated film to be made. It is an industry which does have a strong heirarchy, and it is very easy to imagine young people baulking at the prospect of spending a few decades doing this repetitive but necessary work before they can spread their wings and showcase their own creative talent. I suspect that it has always been so in the animation industry in Japan, and it might take some concerted action from the workers for their working lives to be improved. I certainly don't see how spending millions on an anime museum would have hurt their cause. Appointing cute anime ambassadors might make some of us want to throw up, but if it raises the profile of the industry, then it might be a good thing for those people who create these shows too.
What is sad is that some animation makers have to create hentai porn to pay the bills. This must be heartless, brutal work. You know that what you are producing is shit, and it will take weeks and months to finish, but you have to do this stuff to make some money to pay the bills. The people who produce this crap probably had some dreams at one stage of making great animated films, maybe they still do, and now they have been brought down to this level. It must be soul-destroying. The fact that there is such a large market for hentai porn in Japan could lead me into some discussion about the state of mind of middle-aged Japanese men, but I think I'll leave that for another time...
So, is the Japanese anime industry in crisis after all? I rather suspect that it is, but I also suspect that it always has been. Anime market sales in Japan have been declining; most TV series don't recoup their costs from broadcasting sales; sales of anime DVDs are also declining; Korea and China are not importing as much anime as they used to. The people who work in the anime industry struggle to pay the bills and the pay is lousy. If the pool of talented Japanese anime youngsters dwindles, then there might be a real crisis. The escalating outsourcing of work to cheaper Asian countries is ultimately self-defeating for the home industry. It might take some concerted action by government and industry bodies to halt the rot. I certainly hope that happens. In the meantime, if you are a Western fan of cartooning and you have dreams of going to Japan to become a famous anime director, I'd forget about it. You will have zero chance of competing against the tenacity of the locals. Best to draw manga, at least that doesn't involve so many people and such a large amount of money to produce.
Oh, and if this matters at all to you, then buy legally released anime. Some of that money will go back to the creators, who might then be able to produce more of the work that we love.
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