The Nippon Animation Movie Tradition Affiliation (NAFCA) has launched the outcomes of its first survey into working circumstances within the anime trade. The aim of the examine was to verify whether or not the precise state of affairs matched the widely accepted picture of the anime trade with low earnings and lengthy working hours.
Personnel working within the anime trade had been surveyed between December 4, 2023 and January 31, 2024, and a complete of 323 responses had been recorded.
Amongst them, 59%, or 191 individuals, had been animators, adopted by 44 administrators and 35 production-related workers, 27 character and mechanical designers, 23 props and costume designers, 23 voice actors, 20 administrators, 15 ending artists, 14 working in artwork, 11 every working cinematography and CG, 10 from the sound division and 4 screenwriters.
The outcomes of the survey confirmed that the anime trade’s workforce was certainly overworked and underpaid, which matched the final opinion held in regards to the trade.
Anime trade workers work lengthy hours:
The outcomes of the NAFCA survey confirmed that the typical working hours of workers within the anime trade was 219 hours, which is kind of excessive in comparison with the nationwide common of 162.3 hours in complete. The utmost working hours within the anime trade had been calculated to be roughly 336 hours, whereas the median was 225 hours.
Of respondents, 71.4% stated they labored 8 hours or extra per day, whereas 30.4% of respondents stated they labored 10 hours or extra. Moreover, 58.8% of the full respondents had six days off in a median month.
The figures didn’t enhance because the workforce grew older, with 69% of over-50s saying they labored 8 hours or extra, and 21% labored 10 hours or extra.
Whereas working hours definitely look dangerous, the state of affairs has really improved over the previous six years.
For instance, in 2017, about 30 p.c of animators labored 260 hours or extra in a month (greater than 100 hours of extra time). In 2022, this quantity was solely 10 p.c. The variety of animators working between 240 and 260 hours additionally noticed a decline over the previous 4 years.
Nonetheless, regardless of the enhancements, the state of affairs within the sector leaves a lot to be desired. These numbers from the present NAFCA survey could be seen as a numerical manifestation of the power labor scarcity within the anime trade.
Of their quest for segregation of duties, workers working within the sound division had notably lengthy working hours, with 38% of respondents on this job class working 12 hours or extra per day. This was adopted by management at 22%, whereas workers from all job classes had greater than 30% of respondents working 10 hours or extra.
Nonetheless, the survey outcomes additionally present that solely administrators, designers, CG and screenwriters have comparatively snug working hours, whereas different forms of staff work extraordinarily lengthy hours.
It was additionally famous that ladies had been extra more likely to work longer hours, regardless that there wasn’t a lot distinction in the way in which women and men labored when it got here to producing anime.
Practically 40% of anime workers earn lower than 200,000 yen monthly:
As for the compensation half, the survey discovered that 37.7% of the full respondents responded that their anime-related work earns them lower than 200,000 yen monthly, or lower than 2.4 million yen per yr. And of those, 77.6% of individuals weren’t engaged in any work outdoors of the anime trade, which means they lived on an annual earnings of two.4 million yen or much less.
Taking a look at earnings by place, ending and screenwriters had remarkably low incomes, with greater than 60% incomes lower than 200,000 yen monthly. Whereas 43% and 45% of animators and artwork administrators respectively earn lower than 200,000 yen monthly, or lower than 2.4 million yen per yr by way of annual earnings.
In distinction, 11% of animators reported an annual earnings of greater than 10 million yen, indicating that they will earn properly in the event that they hone their abilities. As proof, about 15% of respondents answered that they earn greater than 700,000 yen monthly or 8.4 million yen per yr from character/mechanical design and prop/costume design, that are reportedly profession choices for animators.
As well as, greater than 50% of those that turned administrators stated they earned greater than 500,000 yen monthly (6 million yen per yr), making it potential to have a secure profession on this subject. Nonetheless, in the event you examine this to the annual common wage of mission managers from outdoors the anime trade, which is 8.915 million yen, it seems that anime trade workers are usually paid low wages.
The survey discovered that ending and audio-related jobs additionally had the most affordable hourly wages within the trade, at 667 yen and 875 yen, respectively. The very best was the director’s hourly wage of two,111 yen. In truth, virtually 14% of anime workers earned an hourly wage between 600 and 800 yen.
The common hourly wage within the anime trade is 1,111 yen, which is barely greater than the nationwide common of 1,004 yen in March 2024 and barely decrease than Tokyo’s minimal wage of 1,113 yen.
The examine concluded that regardless of the variations within the sector, it was clear that wages had been abnormally low and the arguments in opposition to exploitation had been troublesome to refute.
Supply: NAFCA
