For 40+, who else is nearly done?

[ArrowSmith]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Different strokes for different folks. Can't stand that show.

A super cute red panda singing death metal? What more could you want?

[Fvlminatvs]

Originally Posted by ArrowSmith

A super cute red panda singing death metal? What more could you want?

A super cute red panda in bikini armor with a robot sidekick that wields laser weapons and murders space pirates by the dozen while piloting a transforming mech.

But this is the '10s, not the '80s.

Originally Posted by ArrowSmith

Inuyashiki was great until the last episode when they threw the Bad Orange Man in for no reason.

Oh, there was a reason. Rest assured.

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

I've been almost unfailingly disappointed in Netflix' efforts so far. While they are nominally aimed at older audiences, they've generally been hollow and soulless series trying too hard to be "cool" and "push the envelope".

Netflix is trying to compete and is dominating their seisaku iinkai from what I gather, in sheer money invested. Streaming is, honestly, going to be experiencing serious changes in the coming decade, what with the emphasis on "exclusive rights" to programs. Some of the stuff on Netflix is a'ight once you get past the hype. For example, I went into Violet Evergarden with low expectations due to the hype-train and came away pleasantly surprised. Same goes for B: The Beginning (although there was no hype-train for that, really). Netflix's biggest problem is the whole "exclusive streaming rights" deal that keeps hulling out what Netflix has to offer.

The streaming services I hate? By-and-large Crunchyroll and Funimation. They're the worst, service is bad, apps and software suck, politics is more important than accurate translations or dubs, CR has been outed by the Japanese as not putting money into the industry as promised (in case High Guardian Spice didn't tip you off already), and Funimation especially has been outed on Glassdoor a couple years back as having a staff that mostly looks down upon its customers as degenerate losers.

Also, it's distressing that Netflix' money has made no impact on working conditions in the industry. None of it makes its way to the grunts at the studios, and precious little to the studios themselves.

I am not surprised by that. Then again, a lot of money may have a deleterious effect. Right now, people animate due to passion more often than not. If they did it for a paycheck, I am not sure how that would effect quality but in my experience, passion beats paychecks.

Also, consider KyoAni makes gorgeous stuff but from what I understand, their budgets are pretty average--they're just AMAZING at planning, super-organized, and don't ever miss deadlines.

[Guardian Enzo]

"Passion beats paychecks" sounds great unless you're the animator working 200 hours of unpaid overtime a month and getting paid less than a part-timer at McD's.

I don't know what would happen to the industry creatively if staff were paid a living wage and worked hours that didn't put them in the hospital. I'd like to think it would help it attract greater numbers of talented people. But whatever the result, I would happily accept the tradeoff if it meant knowing the people creating the product had a bit of human dignity and weren't living as virtual slaves.

[ArrowSmith]

Why are animators entitled to a $100K/year? The market already says who gets to make that salary. If they want that money, they should have become software engineers.

The chances of animators forming a labor union are the same as software engineers, about 1% due to the independent minded nature of the people who get into these fields.

Getting back to what I believe the impact of the overwork of animators will lead to, I don't know. I do know Japan is already outsourcing virtually all the 'in between' frame work to China and other countries. The next thing to be outsourced will be most of the key-frame work. It's only a matter of time before Japanese studios are only creating IPs, character designs and music. The 'grunt work' animation will be 100% done by outside contractors. It's headed in that direction. Whether that ends up with good content we'll know in 5 years.

Also don't forget China has home-grown anime studios as well, it's only a matter of time before we see Chinese IPs starting to dominate.

[Fvlminatvs]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

"Passion beats paychecks" sounds great unless you're the animator working 200 hours of unpaid overtime a month and getting paid less than a part-timer at McD's.

I don't know what would happen to the industry creatively if staff were paid a living wage and worked hours that didn't put them in the hospital. I'd like to think it would help it attract greater numbers of talented people. But whatever the result, I would happily accept the tradeoff if it meant knowing the people creating the product had a bit of human dignity and weren't living as virtual slaves.

I hear this argument a lot. And yet people keep joining the industry. If it was that bad, fewer people would be willing to work in it.

The easy counter to this is "they aren't, that's why there's outsourcing to other countries." But there has always been outsourcing (for stuff like in-between animation) since at least the late 1980s. That's nothing new.

And karoshi isn't limited to just animators, either. Salarymen die from overwork as well. A good amount of this is just Japan's overall workplace culture.

I'm not going to argue as to whether or not animation staff are underpaid and overworked--I'm in total agreement with you. But you're building a strawman here. Studies show that money fails as an incentive but creativity, passion, drive, personal emotional investment, etc., are much greater determinants for producing quality art or craftsmanship. There are also interviews with gaijin animators who complain about the wages but also admit that animation challenges them and drives them toward artistic excellence and that's why they persevere in the industry.

Yes, I think they should earn a living wage. Yes, I think their work should be properly rewarded. But I don't want to see the industry flooded with sub-par talent because it's a secure job. Frankly, the austerity of the lifestyle weeds out those who are simply looking for a paycheck.

Look at Henry Thurlow--he admitted that he could care less about the money since art is what drives people going into animation. There's no end to the demand for illustrators and any good animator can always quit and do that, instead. Only the real horror stories result in staff leaving. The majority don't experience the hyperbolic circumstances you're describing and end up making enough to live, buy some things they want, and have a bit of free time (less than in the West but again, that's Japan).

Before his Twitter got nuked, Yaginuma said that there's no shortage of new blood, so if the situation's so bad, why are people still joining the industry? He said that was a myth propagated by companies like Janica in order to capitalize on potential shifts in the industry and increasingly direct it.

The problem is that the production committees take advantage of the situation and bully the studios. One of the reasons to sensationalize bad working conditions is to create demand for "more money" in the industry (aka Netflix investment) but with Netflix they made a deal with the devil (so-to-speak) and other would-be licensors who invest directly are handled differently to prevent controlling interests being in foreign hands.

Thurlow, if I recall, said that animators have a lot of creative vision and stubbornness. If the production committees can turn the Japanese animation industry into something more Western, the studio staff, though they're underpaid and overworked, will lose a lot of their creativity. But I think it's not going to happen (see below).

Originally Posted by ArrowSmith

Getting back to what I believe the impact of the overwork of animators will lead to, I don't know. I do know Japan is already outsourcing virtually all the 'in between' frame work to China and other countries. The next thing to be outsourced will be most of the key-frame work. It's only a matter of time before Japanese studios are only creating IPs, character designs and music. The 'grunt work' animation will be 100% done by outside contractors. It's headed in that direction. Whether that ends up with good content we'll know in 5 years.

I think that's a bit alarmist at this point. I would have agreed with you five years ago but right now, I'm not so sure that's where things are headed.

There's a lot of pushback on this front. What you're describing is precisely what happened in the Western animation industry--studios driven by paychecks and not by creativity led to tremendous reduction in creative quality, storytelling, etc. and outsourcing to Korea, etc. Occasionally the West gets lucky with some shows but you can't tell me that the current Disney cartoon lineup is anywhere as quality as it was in the 1990s. The current slate of Western cartoons is utter trash compared to back then.

Also don't forget China has home-grown anime studios as well, it's only a matter of time before we see Chinese IPs starting to dominate.

Again, I would have agreed with you five years back but China has failed to really blast Japan out of the way since Quanzhi Gaoshou. In fact, Quanzhi Gaoshou was the only show that really attracted much international attention (at least in the West).

Otaku see art and creativity as almost religious in some respects. And now you have sites like Pixiv. It's highly competitive and the skill bar keeps rising. Yaginuma and some other people were saying how they really need to organize better in order to break away from production companies. Someone (I forget who) proposed that small and indie game companies should cooperate with animation studios for more vertical integration and independence. I don't know if that's possible because Japanese creatives tend toward eccentrism (just not as much as Western ones, usually). If artists see the industry getting destroyed, I think at this point they'll find a way to persist. Otaku media has always been grass-roots and driven by passion, dedication, and an almost religious zeal, from what I can see.

[Guardian Enzo]

Wow.

I want to go into detail on why I find those last two responses about animator conditions so disturbing (and that's by far the kindest word I could bring myself to use), but I don't think it would end well if I said what I really thought.

[Nivek von Beldo]

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

Wow.

I want to go into detail on why I find those last two responses about animator conditions so disturbing (and that's by far the kindest word I could bring myself to use), but I don't think it would end well if I said what I really thought.

That is common in japan, google black companies(in what you work in japan too?)

[ArrowSmith]

https://www.cartoonbrew.com/anime/ja...sh-110074.html
https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/int...ertime/.145557

[Cosmic Eagle]

Also don't forget China has home-grown anime studios as well, it's only a matter of time before we see Chinese IPs starting to dominate.

The Chinese and JP animation industries are more closely intertwined these days than you might realize. But for Chinese IPs to stand on their own internationally? Not with the CCP insisting on all forms of media being their mouthpiece

I hear this argument a lot. And yet people keep joining the industry. If it was that bad, fewer people would be willing to work in it.

If your training and education was in animation and related fields what else could you do? Game studios? That's just as stressful and may even have a higher entry bar. You mention drive but sweatshop conditions sap drive. They shouldn't become "more Western" with all the West's cultural baggage and shit but they could certainly treat their people better. Never mind money, more time to sleep would also be a godsend

[Arabesque]

Originally Posted by ArrowSmith

Why are animators entitled to a $100K/year? The market already says who gets to make that salary. If they want that money, they should have become software engineers.

Answering why people who get into this industry with "Why are animators entitled to a $100K/year" after "animator working 200 hours of unpaid overtime a month and getting paid less than a part-timer at McD's" is pretty damn cruel.

Animators are not entitled to deserve a chance to earn a livable wage without needing to murder themselves working in the industry. They deserve it because the grunt work they do is hard, highly specialized and to do it well, to the point that when it is done so well, it is regarded of high quality that requires a level of craft and dedication that takes time, practice, effort and talent that is not easily replicated. Even if you can replace the low level animators for other low level animators, that doesn't nurture talent or helps with improving things on the creative side. All it does it makes sure that talented animators are kept out due to the conditions they hear and see, and they instead choose to go into a different profession that doesn't end up with them being driven into a hospital.

More than anything, they also deserve it because no one fundamentally deserves to be stuck in jobs that risk their health while also underpaying them. But that's not really how the world works, and that's also clear when it comes to how the animators are treated across the industry with few exceptions.

I don't think that there is any solving it, however. The industry had been stuck in this condition and will probably continue to be so for years to come. It shouldn't be, but that's how it is now.

Originally Posted by Fvlminatvs

Look at Henry Thurlow--he admitted that he could care less about the money since art is what drives people going into animation. There's no end to the demand for illustrators and any good animator can always quit and do that, instead. Only the real horror stories result in staff leaving. The majority don't experience the hyperbolic circumstances you're describing and end up making enough to live, buy some things they want, and have a bit of free time (less than in the West but again, that's Japan).

I kept on writing an deleting my response to most of your post, for a number of reasons, so I will instead focus on this: Thurlow and similar people like him such as Thomas Romain, do in fact admit that they got into this industry due to their passion, but they have also gone on record several times about how the conditions within the industry not being acceptable. I have not seen the quote you mentioned about them not caring about the money, but I know that they did mention that they have been underpaid and overworked several times during crunch times to get work done.

There might be no end for demand for illustrators, but getting good illustrators is not as easy or simple or quick as you make it seem. Quality takes a hit if you just keep on having a high turnover of staff that do the majority of your work, and that doesn't also go into how it impacts the moral of the people working alongside people who have to endure harsh hours day after day without getting compensated for sacrificing themselves to such a degree.

The real horror stories have been happening over and over, year after year, and if the only response is "staff is leaving" then that doesn't solve the problem.

Originally Posted by Fvlminatvs

Thurlow, if I recall, said that animators have a lot of creative vision and stubbornness. If the production committees can turn the Japanese animation industry into something more Western, the studio staff, though they're underpaid and overworked, will lose a lot of their creativity. But I think it's not going to happen (see below).

They could not underpay and overwork their staff while retaining their creativity. Novel concept, I know, but it could lead to less people suffering and improvement in quality all around.

Originally Posted by Fvlminatvs

There's a lot of pushback on this front. What you're describing is precisely what happened in the Western animation industry--studios driven by paychecks and not by creativity led to tremendous reduction in creative quality, storytelling, etc. and outsourcing to Korea, etc. Occasionally the West gets lucky with some shows but you can't tell me that the current Disney cartoon lineup is anywhere as quality as it was in the 1990s. The current slate of Western cartoons is utter trash compared to back then.

What happened to the Western Animation industry is more complex than what you are describing (given that the Western Animation industry is more diverse and across different countries and have experienced different declines and revivals across the decades) but on Disney in particular, while the involvement of creative management did eventually lead to the green lighting of several ill advised projects that would go on to under preform and cause the management to eventually end the traditional animation arm of the production, it doesn't tell the full story of what happened, or of how the animators were treated, or the reason why the animation industry in the West is where it is at the moment.

When it comes down to what happened after the 90s in Disney, the management were the ones who fucked up, and the animators paid the price for that by losing their jobs. It was not the correct thing to do, but they had no power to stop them and no one to stand up for them despite how much work and prestige they brought the studio over the years.

---

I'm 10 years too early to answer the main question of this thread I suppose, but I don't think I will be done with anime when I'm 40, 50 or however long I make it. I have been watching shows and films from this medium for many years, and I found myself malleable to whatever is current or in vogue with the mainstream, or what is considered niche. I have also changed a lot since I started watching anime, which is a given since I am older (and I hope, wiser) than I wise when I was younger. I still like what I like, and many of it is similar to the older stuff I watched in the past, while also finding myself not gravitating to some other shows I might have been more into when I was younger. Some of my tastes in shows had changed, my interest in what stories I liked changed, and my perspective on the medium and life itself changed in many ways. Even so, I like anime. At times I even love anime. I don't think that would change as I get older, but who knows.

I do largely agree with SeijiSensei that so far as the industry goes, there isn't really a demand for "mature" type of content compared to some of the older shows that attempted to appeal to a much older audience bracket. It might have to do with what sells currently, or a lack of interest within the watching audiences themselves in exploring such stories. It can be a bit frustrating to go through stories told from the view point of teenagers that make dumb choices and mistakes that adults (mostly) avoid, but there I did find value in many shows that attempted to tackle the issues that teens face in a more human and mature manner, which I do enjoy as well. I do lament that a show like Bartender might not get made today, but I do remain hopeful a resurgence might cause shows of its ilk to make a return, or for the industry to become more willing to explore different types of stories than it currently does.

My issue comes from learning abut the sausage got made. I learned too much about the way that production is handled, the grueling hours and the conditions that the talent working on making anime are treated, and that in many ways made it harder for me to watch shows. Even if I enjoy a series, learning about how people working on it might not have been paid or ended up sick or worse made me feel awful. The risks of being ethically aware in this day and age.

As for how the discussions on series have changed, as Solace, Arya and Guardian Enzo mention, I think that goes back to less of a fragmentation and more about how people engage with each other and with anime (and content) having changed in the years since vBulletin style forums were popular. Each case is different, but people on Reddit for example have less of a need to go an form communities when there is a single one that covers every shows discussion, and the most popular tend to be the ones that make it to the top of the subreddit. That takes care of weekly discourse and discussion better than a more specialized subreddit that would have to contend with a lot of "dead air" between each episode. In general, people who are passionate about it will either go an have discussion about it on Twitter, Discord or any other type of social media platform that they can talk with fellow fans about the shows they like. It just so happens that people have more venues, but everyone chooses different ones according to what fits what they want to talk about and what communities they gel with.

For this forum in particular, it was just a victim of the times. There might have been decisions to take that might have led to retaining some more activity here than what we currently have, but I don't think there was any stopping discussion frequency being much lower than it was a decade ago. The audience for forums of this type is not really what the larger anime watching audience is looking for at the moment.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by Arabesque

Answering why people who get into this industry with "Why are animators entitled to a $100K/year" after "animator working 200 hours of unpaid overtime a month and getting paid less than a part-timer at McD's" is pretty damn cruel.

Animators are not entitled to deserve a chance to earn a livable wage without needing to murder themselves working in the industry. They deserve it because the grunt work they do is hard, highly specialized and to do it well, to the point that when it is done so well, it is regarded of high quality that requires a level of craft and dedication that takes time, practice, effort and talent that is not easily replicated. Even if you can replace the low level animators for other low level animators, that doesn't nurture talent or helps with improving things on the creative side. All it does it makes sure that talented animators are kept out due to the conditions they hear and see, and they instead choose to go into a different profession that doesn't end up with them being driven into a hospital.

More than anything, they also deserve it because no one fundamentally deserves to be stuck in jobs that risk their health while also underpaying them. But that's not really how the world works, and that's also clear when it comes to how the animators are treated across the industry with few exceptions.

I don't think that there is any solving it, however. The industry had been stuck in this condition and will probably continue to be so for years to come. It shouldn't be, but that's how it is now.

This whole "market dictates their wage" is a smokescreen slavers employers use anyway since it does not address the basic problem of overwork. If your wage is this low, you shouldn't, morally speaking, be forced to break your body for your job. It shouldn't be acceptable for high wage earners to be forced to die for their work let alone someone paid peanuts (on that note, mangaka may have it worse seeing how many of them seem to die relatively early every year)

[Forsaken_Infinity]

Originally Posted by ArrowSmith

Why are animators entitled to a $100K/year? The market already says who gets to make that salary. If they want that money, they should have become software engineers.

The chances of animators forming a labor union are the same as software engineers, about 1% due to the independent minded nature of the people who get into these fields.

Christ. I am a software engineer fwiw, and this is the cruelest, most misinformed, blindly pro-capitalism argument I have ever come across.

This is not even about paying animators good money, it's about paying them a fucking livable wage. Not everyone just has a choice to pick a career. As a kid I liked computers and my natural interest happened to lead me towards being a software engineer. I don't think it's healthy for society to completely discourage kids whose natural inclination was towards arts instead whatsoever. It's one thing to value difficult professions more, it's another to outright mistreat other professions. Especially when there's more than enough to go around and especially especially when their labor is crucial to their industry just as much if not more than people being paid more. Like there isn't going to be any anime without animators you know.

Also, the lack of labor unions for software engineers has nothing to do with "independent minded nature". It has everything to do with how the tech corporations have branded together to have a tacit threat of not having a job the moment any software engineer brings up a labor union. A labor union would benefit software engineers just as much as it would benefit any others. Wage theft in tech is very real (just google it). It's just that we're paid enough to not complain about it loudly.

[ArrowSmith]

Nobody has a 'right' to a live-able wage.

[Eisdrache]

I'm very curious why anyone who does their work properly would not have the right to earn enough to live.

[ArrowSmith]

Ask janitors whether they make enough money to 'live'. Life is unfair.

[Eisdrache]

Your point being? Having a low income/qualification job isn't a factor that decides whether or not you deserve to live.

[ArrowSmith]

Again, why the tears just for animators? They picked this profession out of all the other possible things they could do. There is no inherent 'right' to a certain salary, you have to take what the market gives you.

[Eisdrache]

First of all it's not about a single profession and it never was. The logic that earning significantly less than you should while also slaving overtime on top of increased health risks is somehow the employee's fault for choosing the "wrong" profession simply does not hold. This is untrue regardless of whether you are a janitor, an animator, a software engineer, a bank director or anything else.

Any and all professions have the right to earn enough to live and furthermore to be paid fairly according to the amount and quality of their work. If "the market" for whatever reason is paying dumping salaries, then the fault lies with "the market" since this situation is not caused due to some mistake of the worker but because of the greed of the companies.

[Solace]

Originally Posted by ArrowSmith

Nobody has a 'right' to a live-able wage.

They are being employed to produce a good or service. If that's not enough to earn them the right to a living wage, what is?

[ArrowSmith]

Originally Posted by Solace

They are being employed to produce a good or service. If that's not enough to earn them the right to a living wage, what is?

What is your solution, democratic socialism?