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Domestic animators disappearing as anime studios outsource to Asia

A rather alarming news report about the future of anime:

According to the report, the number of people in Japan who are engaged in the creation of anime is dropping. Most studios outsource the actual drawing and animation portions of their projects to other Asian countries, a practice that could hurt future development of the industry. Some believe that individuals must spend decades doing animation grunt work before working as directors or story planners. They fear that outsourcing all that manual labor reduces the amount of anime-related jobs in Japan and it could lead to a shortage of Japanese people capable of creating anime masterpieces.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government released a special series of anime textbooks last month. The textbooks cover the planning, production, and business sides of the industry. The books also include an instructional DVD about how to draw the movement of people and animals. It is hoped that the books will encourage younger Japanese to join the anime industry.

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36 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - January 7, 2009 at 6:50 am

Categories: Otaku & Anime Tags:

http://www.mistakesofyouth.com wildarmsheero

Maybe Japan shouldn’t treat its animators like dirt, and pay them proper salaries! That’d be cool!

Kujiki

easier said than done, they are not being treated as dirt, Life as an Animator is really hard. Research Articles and you will know what i mean

jb

i was under the impression that wages in japan were already rock-bottom. those who want to get into the industry are only to happy to be exploited, it seems
Silent Watcher

Isnt it the same practice in the US as well ? the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” cartoon show from Nickelodeon had its work outsourced to South Korea, which explains the big-eyes, small mouth influence in an American produced TV-cartoon.

Wonder if Disney or Warner-Bros still do their animation work in-house, or send it elsewhere to Asia ?

anon

Ofc they do, but they have style polices, also “Simpsons did it!” and will do in the future.
R.

“the “Avatar: The Last Airbender” cartoon show from Nickelodeon had its work outsourced to South Korea, which explains the big-eyes, small mouth influence in an American produced TV-cartoon.”

That’s the most ignorant thing I’ve ever heard.
http://www.zdwonline.de Haf

Silent Watcher, have a look at this list of cartoons for which Rough Draft Korea has done ink & paint:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_Draft_Studios#Ink_and_paint

I agree with R. on the note about the drawing style being an ignorant thing.

Get informed about the industry before you throw in such comments, they don’t favor our impression of you, really.
Ikunochan

Farming out animation from U.S. television (and nowadays sometimes even theatrical features) animation studios has been in practice for many years. Working in a television animation production studio, including Disney, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Warner Brothers, the closest an artist gets to doing any animation drawing is storyboarding. The rest gets shipped out mainly to Korea these days. The only occasional exceptions are when Flash animation is used. In those cases, the creative people in charge fight hard to keep domestic artists doing the work in-house, since overseas animation is so well known for its terrible quality.

The reason Avatar looks like an anime rip-off is because it was specifically designed by artists in the U.S. to look like one. I was there when it was in development, and it was picked up to ride the coattails of the anime boom that was hitting the U.S. at the time.

klimmer

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. Instead of being solely a Japanese affair, the industry is now a global venture, involving people across borders. Talents and themes can now be drawn from across different cultures, improving the quality and accessibility of Japanese animation.

If the real issue is job creation, then people need to think more in terms of creating value, rather to obligation by default of race, gender or heredity.
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http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

Korea’s going to take it over anyway. They’ve been making good headway into the industry for a decade now.

Anime is the least of Japan’s problems, with Korea coming out strong in companies like Samsung and LG, which are gaining more and more of the market share in the U.S. Sony’s future is looking bleak. On top of that, Hyundai/Kia is looking to boost its global sales, while Honda is already huff-puffing over the strong-yen working against exports. Japan is now finding itself at the bottom of an uphill battle.

Pretty soon, the Japanese-brand-image is going to be shattered globally as consumers find that they can get better products from Korea for cheaper. (Watch some of the latest movies and see for yourself how much Korean product placement there is)

http://www.lgmobilephones.com/lifewithlgbytag.aspx?tid=-1&tag=%20The%20Day%20the%20Earth%20Stood%20Still

Kenny

I agree which was exactly what happened to American brands when Japanese electronics were introduced.
klimmer

“as consumers find that they can get better products from Korea for cheaper.”

While I can agree with ‘cheaper’, I cannot quite concur with ‘better’, especially in the car department.

http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

Just wait

Like cargo ship-building, LCD technology, cell phone design, and portable music players, Korea will come out on top in automobiles too, especially if KORUS FTA goes through. Japan has lost its drive for innovation and is running on the fumes of its brand-name status.

Kitaro

I’ll believe it when Korean firms stop relying on Japanese technology licenses and suppliers; There was a news show on the weak won a few months ago, and it was revealed that Samsung relies on Japanese firms for the machinery necessary to manufacture LCD TV’s.

I’d never be caught dead in a Korean car; they have horrible styling that rips off European and Japanese marques, and don’t have a rich history of racing like Japanese and European brands do.
pyrot

I wouldn`t call that a horrible styling:

Kia Pro_Ceed:

http://www.autotraderpulse.co.uk/img/gallery/full/36WEJR3E.jpg

http://autoservice-fiolka.de/neuwagen/proceed/proceed.jpg
Eddie

Korean manufacturers are having to slowly bump up their prices as the country’s GDP increases.

Whilst in the short-term Korean electronic manufacturing companies have done well in areas such as the Middle East, and Asia, for the long term their prospects don’t look so good. Their main strength is the low price of their products, however, their short-term success will be their downfall as increased profits help to push up the GDP of the country and as a result increases salary demands for their workforce.
klimmer

I’m more than happy to buy reliable, cheap, good products from Korea but I’ve been waiting since the much touted Asian Tigers went on sabbatical in ’98 and forgot to return.
Unfortunately, from what I can see so far, Korean companies have competed successfully in areas which the big Japanese names have decided to give up on.
http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

@Klimmer
But that’s the thing – Japanese companies didn’t “decide” to give up on markets.

Japan used to have a profitable ship-building industry, but Korea and China could do it more efficiently for cheaper.

Sharp used to be the top selling LCD screen maker in the world, but they lost out to Samsung and LG. They admitted defeat in a news conference back in 2003! (I remember this specifically because I was taking an economics class at Sophia Uni. in Tokyo at the time, and it was one of our current-event discussions)

Sony is still trying to reel in the market on hand phones, now aiming for the global market. But it’s not the smoothest road. They also gave up on the Walkman series after iPod, and to a lesser extent iRiver, destroyed the competition.

Japanese cars were for a few years coming out strong, making top sales positions in even the States, and now we see Honda threatening the Japanese government and Toyota shutting down factories for 11 days to try and manage their overstock.

The torch is being passed.
Kevin

I would hardly say the torch is being passed – if anything you might say that markets are reshaping themselves.

You mentioned cars, but as of June 2008 the top 4 cars were all Japanese – 2 from Toyota, 2 from Honda. They all surpassed the F-150 pick-up truck which marks the first time in 17 years that a pick-up wasn’t in the number one spot. Is this because the cars have changed a lot? No, consumers are looking for cars that have better gas mileage – i.e. a changing market. These same car companies are themselves in trouble because the car market has completely tanked.

Sony has made blunder after blunder in nearly every market that it has products in, and even with the Playstation 3, Sony is fighting to get out of third place.

This isn’t to say that companies like Samsung and LG don’t make good products, it’s just that the failing Japanese companies are not moving quickly enough to adapt to changes. Companies like Panasonic are still doing really well. Sony is probably in the biggest amount of trouble because they are losing money hand over fist and they have no clear plan for the future. They even won the HD-DVD/Blu-ray format battle and they’re struggling to get people to buy the Blu-ray.

China probably has the potential to make the most progress the fastest, but with all the articles I’ve read about Chinese factories suffering under the current economy, it will be interesting to see if they survive these times too.
http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

Take a look at these articles, too.

http://www.mainstreet.com/article/home-auto/buying-car/hyundai-bets-buybacks-boost-sales

http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/aug2008/bw20080815_181311.htm (Particularly page 2)

and more recently

http://in.news.yahoo.com/137/20090102/744/tbs-s-korea-dec-car-sales-down-13-pct-wo.html

and

http://www.cnbc.com/id/28505412

Most car companies saw drops in 2008. Hyundai/Kia went up 5% in sales.

For all of 2008, Toyota lost its hold on top sales to GM.

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20090106/auto-sales-drop-recovery-unclear.htm
R.

I really don’t know what you mean when you put qina in the same category as Korea. Also can’t see Korean products that are cheaper than Japanese ones in the electronics departments.
Eddie

Alex, I think you’re missing the point completely with the current downturn in sales for the likes of Honda and Toyota. It has more to do with the strength of the Yen than anything else.

Besides, Japanese and Korean car manufacturers are generally aiming at slightly different markets.

Korea cannot continue to manufacture cars/electronics on the cheap while it’s GDP increases. They’ve only planned for the short-term, it’s not looking good for their long-term prospects. Their strength is the low retail price of their products, what will they do once they have lost this strength?
http://www.victorymanual.com Alex

From all the reports, it looks to me like they’ve got a very aggressive business plan, the first signs of which we’re already starting to see.

I’m sure when Japan was coming up strong, a lot of Americans dismissed it as well. But what happened to all of those big American TV manufacturers?

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RMilner

I should have thought decent, well-paid jobs in a growth industry would be more likely to encourage youngsters to join animation than a bunch of textbooks.

OTOH maybe the future of Japanese animation is going to be doujinshi style.
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BZettl

Since this post is still pretty recent I understand if no one knows but: Anyone know where or IF people can buy the books mentioned in the video? I’m a digital artist doing an exchange in Japan and those books would be a gem for me both artistically and linguistically.

http://www.zdwonline.de Haf

They said in the clip (at about 4:49) that including taxes, the books cost 10290 Yen, I don’t know if that price is for one book or for the whole series. Would be a bit expensive though for just one book.
If I understood the segment correctly, the books will be on sale from January 7. onwards and you can buy them for instance at the Tokyo Anime Center in Akihabara, Chiyoda-ku.
The title is アニメの教科書　(anime no kyoukasho), translated into English simply ‘anime textbook’.
Good luck.

http://nonplayercharacter.blogspot.com/ NPC

Awesome drum and bass track at 2:17.
John Paul Bautista

This news is so outdated! it’s very evident if you just carefully observe the quality of some animes and even games released recently.

this may be unnoticeable for some japanese who finance the anime but the quality is evidently being reduced and most of them obviously being made by Korean Animators if not Chinese Animators.

I hope that Japanese don’t just think about how to cut budget when making an anime but also consider the quality of the anime. althou seem minimal, there’s a big difference between an anime made by Japanese from Korean or Chinese. Most people can see that so I strongly suggest that japanese anime must be made by real japanese animators.

R.

I don’t know which animes you’re talking about, and there’s no Japanese videogame produced in collaboration with other country as far as I know (also Korea is number 1 in producing MMORPG games). Almost all animes I watched recently there were always Korean names showing in the ending and didn’t notice any slump in the quality. Content aside, so which anime in the 90s have better quality than today’s animes? Even DBZ had its low quality episodes and they were drawn all by the Japanese.

Big D

Some of the anime that I currently watch does seem to have korean names in the credit, I guess these are the animators? like for Naruto and Bleach, the end credits have “DR MOVE” or something like that. I don’t necessarily think that having non-japanese animators is so bad as far as quality goes. I thought Naruto and Bleach was okay and are similar to the original, but since I dunno anything about animation, I can’t really tell the difference. I think it’s okay as long as the style don’t change, the animators use the original mangaka’s style and the story gets across.
Does the same thing goes for manga as well, does it outsource those, too? I wouldn’t think so since it’s the original, and the mangaka usually does have assistants close to him/her help with the drawings…

But then again… I do see how it would be a kind of issue that the animators is outsourced. Like you get the feeling it’s not authentically Japanese or something like that. and that the manga/anime industry in Japan is weakening and that soon we may not have original japanese anymore… kind of feelings?

I hope the animators in Japan gets better pay and treatments if they really are working extra hard but with little satisfaction, if this keep up pretty soon there won’t be as much of the Great Japanese anime/manga that I love.
I heard a similar story about seiyuu, or voice actors, like most of them don’t get pay well or that it can’t cut it so they work other jobs as well. only 20% work full-time and 80% work part-time as seiyuu and there’s also a school and training for it that takes years.

also since we’re talking about it… I feel disappointed that Japan in the last few years are losing out. Japan was the most technologically advanced, world leaders in technology, automobiles, electronics. I also admire them for their anime/manga and overall, the culture of Japan and it’s drive to be the best. but nowadays, it’s seem that it’s at a standstill while others are passing them by or catching up. It’s like they feel satisfied as being the top once and doesn’t care anymore. If only they have that same motivation that drives them like in the past. Nowadays, I hear that some japanese are really career-oriented, so much so that they are forgetting about spending time with family and even having children. on the side, there are japanese who jump from jobs to jobs, plays and party too much that they aren’t concerned about having a career.
Come on, they need to balance out work and play.
TofuUnion

The main problem is that those young people earn too little money for too much works in animation productions. One solution could be, when the animation companies hire lots of young Japanese animators in Korean or Chinese outsourcing companies. Those people can live much better there in south Korea or China with the same amount of salaries. But this is certainly a weird idea.
jg

The segment fails to mention the growing number of non-Japanese animators living and working in Japan (including some of the biggest outfits).

As with employment issues facing most sectors, making it easier to immigrate, train, and work here could be part of the solution.

Also surprised the segment didn’t mention that Studio Ghibli will open a school in Toyota this spring named “Ghibli West”, where trainees will learn the Miyazaki way. Graduates will then have a chance to produce short films.

Domestic animators disappearing as anime studios outsource to Asia

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