The anime industry’s outward shine might temporarily blind you to the dark inner workings of studios. But it won’t be too long before more animators expose the industry’s failures.
The latest person to speak up is Terumi Nishii, the chief animation director of Jujutsu Kaisen 0. While this isn’t the first time that Nishii has warned people about the struggling industry, her latest tweet exposes the naked truth to anime worshippers.
Is the anime industry going bankrupt? Experts Share
In a recent X post (formerly Twitter), Terumi Nishii made a grim forecast of an upcoming bankruptcy in the anime industry.
“In the future, the capacity of each company will be completely exhausted. We expect to see more and more bankruptcies due to the fact that a production scheduled for 3 years from now will be finished in 5 years, but the budget has been spent on another production😋. I wonder how many animators will be able to survive at that time. The careless ones will be cut off. Let’s all study up!”
In the tweet, she clearly explains that work that used to take three years will take longer to produce because the budget would be used up for other projects. Animators will be overtaken by those who might not even be good enough.
The X thread was triggered by another post that criticized new animators for not knowing how to draw trace lines for shading. In response, Terumi tweeted that she wants production companies to take precautions. If a shot differs from its specifications, it should be redone by the animator. She further says that animators will be tested until they can read and follow the provided instructions.
Shingo Adachi, the character designer for Sword Art Online, also commented on the talent shortage problem. Each year, there are around 200 animated series created in Japan and there aren’t enough skilled animators to cover all of the projects. Thus, studios rely on almost unpaid freelancers who love anime but have very few skillsets to show for it.
It is mostly in-between animators who are freelancers and they are paid around $2 per drawing. Given that each drawing takes almost an hour to complete, the situation is dire. Adachi further explains:
“Even if you move up the ladder and become a key-frame animator, you won’t earn much…even if your title is a huge hit, like Attack on Titan, you won’t make any of it. … It’s a structural problem in the anime industry. There’s no dream [job as an animator].”
Henry Thurlow, a non-Japanese animator in Japan shared his experience with Buzzfeed. His piercing words are: “It’s an illegally harsh industry.”
The Problem According to Terumi Nishi
According to Terumi Nishii, the animation industry has been facing various struggles, one of them being a workforce shortage, leading to an increase in underqualified animators joining studios. In an interview with Anime News Network in February 2024, she explained that more senior animators are forced to redo the messy work of newbies, in addition to their own.
According to her, the root cause of this problem is the absence of specialized training and a general skill evaluator test. Just like every student who graduates is not on a professional level, knowing just the general aspects of animation is not enough qualification.
Of course, the lack of a standardized test is not the only problem. Nishii further states that overtime hours are extremely long, and animators can never go home because of strange quotas they can never complete.
In 2021, anime producer Masuo Ueda talked about the lack of unions in the anime industry. He explained that the industry heavily relies on freelancers, who find it difficult to unionize. Because of the lack of standards, studios don’t agree on a minimum wage for animators. If a group of animators decide on a minimum wage, the studio can just find another group for a lower rate, also known as wage dumping.
In an IT Media interview, Nishii claimed that Netflix’s huge budget ultimately doesn’t benefit the animators. While Netflix’s budget is two to three times the regular budget, animator wages are not raised. The money sometimes gets used to simply keep the company afloat. “It’s like if it rains in a desert. It gets swallowed by the sand, and it’s not enough to make plants grow.”
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Animation Director’s Effort Toward Maintaining Anime Studio Standards
Terumi Nishii has been involved with The Nippon Anime & Film Culture Association (NAFCA), which was founded in 2023 to combat the adverse working conditions in Japan’s anime industry. The organization is committed to providing better working and living conditions for anime creators and has implemented an animator skill test as its primary objective.
All anime fans around the world, please support us! https://t.co/D903JMyJh6
— NISHII_terumi (@Nishiiterumi1) May 20, 2023
This measure will combat the hiring of animators over social media, which, according to Nishii, is drafting cheap labor. Standardizing skills opens a pathway for animators to receive prospects and payments according to their skill level.
Terumi Nishii has warned the world about the unfair practices in the anime industry time and again and works hard to create a better working environment for animators. In an April 2019 tweet, she blatantly told people not to come to Japan to become animators just because they love anime.
No matter how much you like anime, it is not advisable to come to Japan and participate in anime work. Because the animation industry is usually overworked😭
— NISHII_terumi (@Nishiiterumi1) April 22, 2019
She further explained that mangakas are paid well if their manga sells, but for anime, there is no royalty or income distribution that will profit the creators.
Nishii has also addressed multiple times the endemic health issues in animators due to overworking. While anime projects have increased over the years, there has been little change in the welfare of the workers. Thus, it is common to doubt how long the industry will exist with rampant issues like these.
