While Crunchyroll is celebrating the confirmation that Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is now the sixth highest-grossing anime film worldwide, the voice actors from that film have yet to see that financial success trickle down to them.Kayleigh McKee, the English dub actor of Jujutsu Kaisen 0's protagonist Yuta Okkotsu, quote-retweeted Crunchyroll, saying, "Always loving seeing that sweet residuals money for playing the main character in english hit my bank account." In her thread, McKee said this was her first time speaking publicly about the low pay the voice actors from the film received, consequently revealing that she had signed a contract for less than $1,000. McKee is the fourth voice actor from the hit anime film to speak out about their unfair pay, with Chris Tergliafera (voice of Kiyotaka Ichiji), Anairis Quiñones (voice of Rika Orimoto) and Tara Jayne Sands (voices of Momo Nishimiya and Utahime Iori) revealing their obscenely low pay earlier in the year. McKee was explicit in stating that the blame lies with "the corpo brass at @Crunhyroll and by proxy @SonyPictures et al., as well as studio MAPPA. Worker exploitation and manipulation exists in all fields."
Anime Voice Actors Can’t Make a Living
In September, Tergliafera and Quiñones tweeted that $150 was paid to them, with the latter revealing that they received "no residuals or anything past that." Sands' attempt to negotiate a higher wage due to Jujutsu Kaisen 0 being a theatrical release was not successful. The voice actor was clear that she did not blame the recording studio and said, "These changes need to come from the top. It's hard to know if the people at the top even hear our requests or frustrations." Kaiji Tang, the voice of the sorcerer Satoru Gojo, opened up about how their work as an anime voice actor wasn't enough to make a living and how, outside the anime industry, they had to work 12 to 20 hours of providing audio description and doing voice-overs for children's audiobooks. Tang also discussed the poor work conditions where voice actors often had to do cold reads where they recorded the final dub as they were reading the script for the first time.
Crunchyroll Is Non-Union
Numerous voice actors have come out to push for union dubbing. In the U.S., the Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) represents over 160,000 artists and is responsible for negotiating consistent and fair pay, fair working conditions, contributions toward health insurance and a pension. Crunchyroll, now under Sony, is non-union. Mob Psycho 100's voice actor Kyle McCarley did not reprise his role as Mob after unsuccessful attempts with Crunchyroll to discuss producing the third season on a SAG-AFTRA union contract. Because of his passion and commitment to voicing Mob, McCarley went back to Crunchyroll, offering to work on Mob Psycho 100 non-union on the condition that they would have a meeting discussing union contracts. He stressed that Crunchyroll did not have to agree to a union contract and that this would only be a conversation. Crunchyroll ultimately did not agree, and an uncredited voice actor replaced McCarley.
MAPPA produced Gege Akutami's prequel Jujutsu Kaisen 0 in December 2021. The series follows Yuta Okkotsu, whose childhood friend Rika has turned into a rather violent and clingy cursed spirit. Although the Jujutsu Society wanted to execute Yuta for being the host of a dangerous special-grade spirit, his life was spared thanks to Gojo, a teacher at Tokyo Jujutsu Technical High. The film grossed 26.5 billion yen (approximately $196.17 million) and is the fourth highest-grossing Japanese film in the U.S.
Jujutsu Kaisen 0 is available on Crunchyroll.
Source: Twitter