Anime staff and other professionals have recently raised concerns over the sustainability of the industry in light of the Japanese yen's depreciation against essential currencies like the Korean won and the Chinese yuan.
Recent reports from Nikkei Asia and Japan Times reveal that the yen is at a 16-year low against the won and its lowest against the yuan since 1993. Animator Otarou explained in April why this was significant in a recent post to X (formerly Twitter): "The weak yen is also having a significant impact on the anime industry, with overseas companies that were able to do business with us until the beginning of the year now saying that they can no longer take on orders at the same prices." Most anime studios act as contractors for production committees, entrusted with budgets for their services, which they use to subcontract studios. Animator Otarou continued, "On the other hand, the budget from the committee remains unchanged, and the studio has no choice but to cut its profits to make up for the weak yen or to reduce the cost of the footage. Furthermore, the purchasing power of anime fans is also declining."
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The latter post comes from an episode director for the Crunchyroll Spring 2024 anime titles Mysterious Disappearances and Bartender: Glass of God, Kentaro Mizuno. Highlighting this issue in multiple posts this year, he said, "It has come to the point where good animators and capable companies in China and Korea are no longer accepting Japanese work, and even if they do, they cannot make a profit. Even though it's gotten to this point, you [government] plan to do nothing? If things continue like this, sooner or later, Japan will sink. Japan's talented animators and companies will be taken over by foreign companies. They'll be dominated -- exploited. That would be the case."
Japan's Anime Industry Has Often Sourced Cheaper Labor From China, Korea & Other Countries
Japan's reliance on outsourcing stems from cheaper labor costs, particularly from Korea and China. If this can't be sustained, it would likely force the number of productions to go down, or for already overworked and underpaid anime staff to work harder to compensate. A 2021 statistic from the Animator Dormitory Project alleged that 90% of animators quit their jobs in three years, making increased burdens possibly disastrous. Naturally, this also has real effects on viewers, including production troubles and cancelations, and entrenching the duopoly of cheaper trope-filled anime or only adaptations of works that can be reliably expected to deliver major profits.
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Anime May Be Forced to Use AI if Japan Is Unable to Source Enough Creators Domestically
Mizuno's vision of exploitation stemming from low wages may already be happening, even domestically. Chief Producer at Netflix Anime Taiki Sakurai held a talk at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade, and Industry last year, with his comments having implications for both creators and the quality of anime for fans. On the one hand, he called for the Japanese government to introduce better tax support systems and for production companies to improve their ability to sell anime overseas. This was something that Chainsaw Man producer Makoto Kimura highlighted changed MAPPA for the better. Nevertheless, the bulk of his talk called for the introduction of AI, adding, "The difference between Japan and other countries in terms of acceptance is that Japan still relies on individual craftsmanship skills and has not been able to break away from this. I think we are now cornered into a situation where there are not enough creators to want to borrow even a cat's hand, and if we don't use AI, we won't be able to deliver tomorrow's product in time."
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Sakurai's closing comments included, "Also, although this is not necessarily a good thing, it is now cheaper to make anime in Japan than in Thailand, Vietnam or South Korea. In that sense, one of the attractions of Japanese production sites is that production costs are reasonable, which may be an opportunity for success."
Source: X (formerly Twitter), Nikkei Asia, Japan Times