The Industry - Costs

[dwayne12]

This is amazing I never knew that the anime industry is such a big issue in this place, and there are a lot of things I think that I should know about this place or rather the industry. As you people have indicated I wonder if this quality can also be incorporated in our place to make it prosper, so am searching for more info. on this.

[Ookla The Mok]

Originally Posted by 4Tran

Occassionally, some Japanese companies will also get royalties based on sales, but I don't believe that it's part of the standard agreement.

Oh, I'll bet it is. Only after the advance is earned back though, of course.

[wao]

Anyone wanting to know more about how animators actually work in making anime in Japan - the drawings-being-corrected system, why it is such a pain (and by extension why it is stupid to expect everything to be corrected so perfectly), how much animators get paid and why it is not surprising many consider it a shitty job:

You are probably going to highly benefit from reading this discussion going on here at the AniPages forum, with information coming from Peter Chung, who's worked with Japanese animators and the system before, and resident expert Ben who maintains the excellent AniPages blog with info and comments on animators in anime and other animation.

[Siegel Clyne]

Originally Posted by wao

Anyone wanting to know more about how animators actually work in making anime in Japan - the drawings-being-corrected system, why it is such a pain (and by extension why it is stupid to expect everything to be corrected so perfectly), how much animators get paid and why it is not surprising many consider it a shitty job:

You are probably going to highly benefit from reading this discussion going on here at the AniPages forum, with information coming from Peter Chung, who's worked with Japanese animators and the system before, and resident expert Ben who maintains the excellent AniPages blog with info and comments on animators in anime and other animation.

Thanks for the link.

Having worked in the Japanese, American, and South Korean animation studio systems, Korean-born American animator Peter Chung, the creator of Aeon Flux among other things, is a wellspring of knowledge and insight on the animation practices of the three countries.

A mere layman in contrast, I nevertheless started a thread a few years ago on the forums at Animation World Network regarding "animating on 1s, 2s, or 3s," inspired by a post by Peter Chung on a thread at the Aeon Flux Top Level Forum about differences between Japanese animation and American animation, a post which I linked to and, quoted from, in a post on a thread at another anime forum around the same time.

Getting back to Peter Chung in 2007...

Originally Posted by Peter Chung

I should supplement my long-winded statements above by saying that Japanese animation artists blow away their American counterparts when it comes to doing TV work, or low-budget features. There's a thrill I get from seeing animation being done roughly, spontaneously, experimentally, without concern about the general audience. I still spend far more time watching Japanese animation than American, not all of it good, but there's a vitality to the industry (maybe it's desperation) that persists. I actually think the Golden Age of hand-drawn Japanese animation is right now.

[Gordy Lechance]

An economy major friend of mine and I had an online conversation a few days ago, and when I came to the following subject:

"How much does a 12 Episode Anime like Onegai Teacher or Nogizaka Haruka cost?"

"About $200,000 Dollars, US. The entire series."

No way. I thought. And these series are made before this dreadful economic crisis.

And the above two series are "low end" budget series, as composed to beautifully animated Kyo-Ani productions like Air, Clannad and the "God Knows Concert" Episode of Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu.

Surely the budget for those are much higher.

And then there's the cinemtatic Gunslinger Girl (First Season, mind you), which costed $1.3 million dollars US an episode to make, back in the early 2000s.

Now after this economic crisis has hit us, greatly hyped series such as Eden of the East don't even have enough money to survive past Episode 10, and even the once-thought-unstoppable Kyo-Ani has seen sharp drops in animation quality following Clannad After Story with K-On (still cute and fun, though) and Haruhi Season 2 (which finally resorts to the tactic of using freeze frames in Episode 2, usually reserved for fighting-series).

It will be some time yet before we can go back to the days like in the glorious 1980's where an anime can keep going (and going and going) as long as there's a fanbase, but just wondering:

How much does it cost these days, in this economic crisis, to make:

A) A well animated 12-24 episode series like say, Clannad After Story and Caanan.

B) A weekly dime-a-dozen with a LOT of "freeze-frames" like Bleach and One Piece.

C) A 12 Episode Drama?

[Sleep]

B: I remember reading somewhere that it costs around $ 20.000,- to make a naruto episode

[0utf0xZer0]

Originally Posted by Gordy Lechance

And then there's the cinemtatic Gunslinger Girl (First Season, mind you), which costed $1.3 million dollars US an episode to make, back in the early 2000s.

I think you messed up with your yen to USD conversion there. Gunslinger Girl definately broke the $100K per episode barrier, but it definately did not break $1 million per episode.

The only thing I know has broken $1 million an episode is Afro Samurai, which had American funding.

[Vexx]

A live-action special effects laden tv episode has trouble breaking $1million/episode o.O A mere animated episode is rolling in budget if it gets near $100K.

It isn't that an anime production isn't labor intensive... its that they horribly underpay the staff and outsource to 'sweatshops' for many aspects.

[Cipher]

How much does it cost these days, in this economic crisis, to make:

A) A well animated 12-24 episode series like say, Clannad After Story and Caanan.

B) A weekly dime-a-dozen with a LOT of "freeze-frames" like Bleach and One Piece.

C) A 12 Episode Drama?

Excuse my ignorance about these things but since anime's are still being made( I don't know about the change in rate), I'd say there shouldn't be that much difference. How does the financial crisis affect animation companies? More importantly, How much do animators/studios make money with these prices?

[Gordy Lechance]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

The only thing I know has broken $1 million an episode is Afro Samurai, which had American funding.

There's also a recent Australian cartoon called Dogstar which costs $1.2 million Aussie Dollars (3/4th of an American dollar, last time I checked) which ran for two 24 Episode seasons, and is apparently very well received in Japan.

[Westlo]

Originally Posted by Gordy Lechance

Now after this economic crisis has hit us, greatly hyped series such as Eden of the East don't even have enough money to survive past Episode 10,[/i]

Yet they found enough money to make two movies... I suggest you look at the time slot Eden aired in as well.. I doubt another show after Nodame Cantabile runs for two cours again in that slot.

Btw Japan's economy... well has been stuffed for years.

[Bri]

"How much does it cost to produce an Anime Series these days?"

Depends on how you define cost. Usually less then 25% of the original budget gathered by the sponsors ends up with the anime production companies. The rest is used on advertising and (more then 50% of the original budget) is spend on buying broadcasting time. (Source, case study meti)

[-KarumA-]

also depends on their budget, a show with 3D in it, depending on what factors were animated in 3D (robots or almost still background scenes or moving scenes), carries a different price tag

[Full Metal Coast]

Originally Posted by 0utf0xZer0

I think you messed up with your yen to USD conversion there. Gunslinger Girl definately broke the $100K per episode barrier, but it definately did not break $1 million per episode.

The only thing I know has broken $1 million an episode is Afro Samurai, which had American funding.

Afro Samurai was so expensive because they had Samuel L Jackson and Kelly Hu doing voice acting and the RZA doing the soundtrack.

but i do have to say my top three favourite sound tracks to an anime series would have to be

Samurai Champloo
DTB/Cowboy Bebop/Yoko Kano
Afro Samurai/RZA

i hope the RZA does another series.

[Shadow Kira01]

Extremely Low Salary of Japanese Animators

I guess it varies.

[npcomplete]

Originally Posted by Shadow Kira01

Extremely Low Salary of Japanese Animators

I guess it varies.

That seems like the norm though, unfortunately. The way the industry is set up currently is that despite big budgets, only a very small portion goes to pay for the animation production itself.

Reposting aohige's post

The anime "budget" is actually not the real reason why animators get paid so little.
It's because the middle man, the sinister "Dentsuu", takes out insane chunks from the budget.

Here's a chart example.


Sponsor puts out $500k for the anime budget.
Dentsuu and the TV studio eats up chunks of it, leaving only $80k for the actual production budget. Workers pay comes out of this also.
The real problem is the middle man taking away majority of it and leaving nothing for the workers.

But it's possible to buck the trend, as Makoto Shinkai did even with the very high quality visuals:
http://anime.nickistre.net/blog/anim...s-movie-budget
(and in the same link, you can see that Perfect Blue only costs $31,000 )
which is not surprising considering how some people effectively replace financial investment with an investment in time and effort between you and your comrades
e.g. 5cm per sec
Director: Makoto Shinkai
Screenplay: Makoto Shinkai
Storyboard: Makoto Shinkai
Producer: Makoto Shinkai
3DCG Work: Makoto Shinkai, Yoshitaka Takeuchi
Camera: Makoto Shinkai
Cinematography: Makoto Shinkai
Color design: Makoto Shinkai
Editing: Makoto Shinkai
Sound director: Makoto Shinkai



Now I don't know how much of this was also produced with the method of "initially working for free" but while costly, I'd have to guess it's still not that prohibitively expensive for a small group to produce quality animation as we've seen doujin circles Touhou do for Kinema Kan and POP do for Kowarekake no Orgol, released at C75 (subbed by [yu] btw).

You also have Cencoroll, completely made by a single person, under sponsorship from Anime Innovation Tokyo, which was picked up Aniplex two years later. It's similar to how independent films are made, showcased at film festivals like Sundance and shopped around for publishers.

I will also say that after discounting the large, extraneous commercial costs involved as shown in aohige's post above, you can still improve the efficiency of animation production through software. While digitally rendered, painted and composited, most of the anime now is still done painstakingly by hand, which is why much of the in-between production is farmed out to S.Korea and other places with cheaper labor for longer series. Contrast this with current American style production--from big studios like Disney to little low-budget Saturday morning cartoons--of heavily relying on software to produce really smooth animation with less man power.

[risingstar3110]

Now i feel sorry for the Japanese animators.... i really do...... T__T'


10k a year in expensive country such as Japan.... how do they lives....
If the article is just like what you said( and those on that topic discussed) then i really hate those "middle man" capitalists. Bite out a chunk worth almost 6 times the real cost is just unbelievable...... It's not like they have to wrap the anime with gold foil, use private plane and Mercedes to escort an anime episode to the station channel....


Some big evil organization should hire all of those animators, give them a better pay so they can make anime and brainwash the otaku population into their order.....

[yezhanquan]

The main profit lies with the major bookstores. For anime adaptations of manga/light novels, they take one hell of a cut.

[Kyuu]

In retrospect, try making comparisions to the production costs of American TV shows.

[TJR]

Originally Posted by risingstar3110

Some big evil organization should hire all of those animators, give them a better pay so they can make anime and brainwash the otaku population into their order.....

The root problem is overproduction. Since most anime productions lose money, banks won't lend money directly to the studios, who must then rely on the middlemen for financing. At the same time, the middlemen don't want to pay more than the minimum for most shows since odds are that the series will tank.

To break free, you need a system in which the studios finance their own work, take responsibility for market performance, and earn money (hopefully used to pay employees better).

A solution might be for the industry to shrink and focus only on surefire hits. However, that would put many animators out of work.......

Originally Posted by npcomplete

The way the industry is set up currently is that despite big budgets, only a very small portion goes to pay for the animation production itself.

To clarify, the middle men eat the profits (or the losses), not the budget. So little money goes toward production because the companies are only willing to risk the minimum for most series. They scrape up enough for broadcast and advertising costs and then a little for animation.

Gonzo/GDH temporarily broke free of this vicious cycle, but they ended up shooting themselves in the foot.