I guess it is no surprise that Japan’s anime industry is suffering, given the current economic situation. The increased availability of downloading free episodes and movies on the internet does not help the situation either.

Yasuo Yamaguchi, executive director of the Association of Japanese Animators, believes that the anime industry is important to Japan’s economy and that the government should help it by giving it subsidies. Yamaguchi has stated that this recession has hit the industry the hardest since the recession following World War II.

It takes a lot of dedication and hard work to work on animation in Japan. Most of Japan’s animation is hand drawn rather than computer produced which means long working hours. The worst part of being an animator is the pay. Take in-between animator (filling in cells between key animations) Nobuki Mitani for example. He has the lowest paid position in the animation hierarchy, which has been outsourced to the Philippines and South Korea lately, and works for about 10 to 12 hours a day for $800 a month. Mitani lives in a tiny one room apartment with no air conditioning and shares a sink in the hall to wash his hands and face. He has to go to a public bath to bathe.

At the Tokyo Animation Institute classroom after classroom is filled with potential animators who are carefully perfecting their skills. However many graduates will end up quitting their first jobs within months according to the school’s director, Yosuke Shimizu. The graduates will take various jobs and those who are good enough will never complain about how hard the job is.

Toei Animation Studios (Dragonball, One Piece) is known to have better conditions for their animators than smaller animation studios. However the work is still intense and time consuming. Naotoshi Shida, a Toei worker for 25 years, said it takes a lot more than the love of drawing to succeed. So if you’re looking to be an animator because you love to draw then you better look for a different job.

[Source:CNN;Image taken from Anime Fest]