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Hello, and welcome to Deep Dive. From The Japan Times, I'm Oscar
Boyd.
At the start of the year, AMC Networks, the company behind
shows like 'Mad Men' and 'Breaking Bad,' acquired anime
distributor Sentai, and with it the anime streaming service
HiDive. In August, Sony bought the anime streaming platform
Crunchyroll for almost $1.2 billion. And over the past
couple of years, streaming giants like Netflix and Disney
have poured money into original anime programming. Interest in
anime around the world has never been higher.
Behind the scenes though, animators struggle to make a
living and many insiders are calling the industry
unsustainable as studios struggle to keep up with demand
and the pandemic slows production. Here at Deep Dive,
we figured this would be as good a time as any to revisit the
rise of this piece of Japanese soft power. And who better to do
it than my colleague, culture editor Alyssa I. Smith. On
today's episode, Alyssa will be speaking to Japan Times
contributer Matt Schley to ask: what's behind Japan's booming
anime industry? And with so much overseas interest, what makes
anime anime in 2022?
Alyssa Smith: Matt, welcome to Deep Dive. Thanks for joining me
today.
Matt Schley: Thanks for having me.
Alyssa Smith: So you've been writing about anime for The
Japan Times since 2017. And you're one of our go to people
for all things anime. To sort of kick us off, I think it would be
useful to give the discussion some context. So why don't we go
back to when anime started?
Matt Schley: Sure, anime in Japanese is a shortening of the
word animation. So in Japan, when you say anime, you're
talking about any kind of animation. Which really threw me
off when I first moved here and I asked people 'what's your
favourite anime?' and they said 'Toy Story 2' or something. But
in English when we say the word anime, we're of course referring
to Japanese animation.
Now Japanese animation has a long history. The first known
anime that we've still got, you can watch on YouTube, was made
in 1917, about 100 years now. The early kind of prewar anime
was often silent, leading up to World War Two a lot of kind of
propaganda films again, like in the States, Mickey being used to
boost morale.
Alyssa Smith: Right.
Matt Schley: Same thing here in Japan and the first full length
anime feature is called 'Momotaro Sacred Sailors.'
That's again a propaganda film.
Postwar, the industry really starts to become what we think
of it now as the modern industry. There's a very famous
film from 1958 called 'Hakujaden,' and that was made
by Toei, who are still around. It's the first full length
colour anime.
Alyssa Smith: And that film was based on a Chinese folktale?
Matt Schley: It was yes, yeah. There was a 4k restoration done
a bit a couple years ago. It's a really beautiful film. Now films
up to that period, really used a Disney style, animating 24
frames a second, really fluid animation. The first anime to
kind of introduce the style that we think of as Japanese
animation came in 1963 that was 'Astro Boy' ('Tetsuwan Atom').
That was produced by Tezuka Osamu, and that sets the
template for the anime that we still watch today. It's based on
a popular manga, it uses a kind of aesthetic with the big eyes
that we associate with anime, that kind of cute over
exaggerated characters. And it uses a style called limited
animation. And what that means is: Disney films, one second of
animation is 24 frames typically right, a very fluid look. Tezuka
and other people realise that that wasn't gonna be possible,
they didn't have the manpower to do that on a weekly basis, right
to get out this kid's show. So what they did instead was
embraced a style called limited animation. So instead of doing
every 24 frames, they would do eight frames and shoot those
shoot three of those frames three times. So you've got less
fluid animation, but you know, it's on TV, it's for kids.
Ultimately, it's out there to sell manga, and it's out there
to sell toys and stuff like that. And that kind of aesthetic
became the standard.
Alyssa Smith: Right. I know, it made a huge impression on my
mom, because you know, she doesn't watch a lot of anime
now. But even now she talks about 'Astro Boy' and how much
she loved watching it as a kid.
Matt Schley: It was it was huge.
Alyssa Smith: So then after 'Astro Boy' that must have
started a trend in anime?
Matt Schley: Yep, so anime became huge. Of course, it's
first aimed at children. Over time, people get into the
industry who originally wanted to make live action films. And
they had kind of higher ambitions, people like the
creator of 'Gundam,' which is considered one of the first kind
of adult anime. It's still for kids, and it's still meant to
sell robot toys. But he snuck in a lot of kind of more adult
themes. It's about war, people die. And that's still considered
one of the great anime
So as Japan's economy flourishes, you get into the
'80s You've got a lot of money swirling around, and you've got
really incredible, lavish productions. People think of
1988's 'Akira' as one of the kind of seminal, great looking
anime productions.
Alyssa Smith: When I think of 'Akira' I don't really see that
as being made for children. It seems like a very adult themed
film.
Matt Schley: No, absolutely. There's there's violence and
blood and guts and all that stuff. Yeah.
So we see anime getting more specialised, as well, in the
'80s. With the advent of VCRs, and Betamax players and stuff
like that, you've got a specialty market that's only on
video, that's aimed at more affluent consumers, obviously.
You've got this whole subset of anime that's for people in their
20s or 30s, or 40s, with a lot of money to spend. Again, it's
the '80s in Japan. And you've got people producing this
specifically for the video market or for the theatrical
market.
Alyssa Smith: So far, we've talked a lot about how anime
became popular in Japan. But how did it move over to the West?
Matt Schley: From a very early time from the '60s and '70s.
You've got anime being released in the West, but in kind of a
hidden form, if you will. So it's a cheap way for for TV
shows to get animation. They don't have to animate
themselves, they can import it from Japan, they can dub it into
English, they can pretend the main character's name isn't
Satoshi. It's John. And they scrub a lot of the Japanese-ness
from it, right?
Alyssa Smith: I remember watching an episode of Pokemon
and the main character's name was turned to Ash. Yeah, right.
Matt Schley: Yeah,
Alyssa Smith: It was so disconcerting.
Matt Schley: Yeah, exactly. And so you can imagine if you go
back even further, the '60s and '70s Just trying to scrub any
Japanese-ness from it, right. Once you get to the '80s, you've
got a more kind of discerning fan base that starts to grow.
And you've got people that realise this stuff is from
Japan, they start to demand that they get subtitled releases. In
addition to dubbed releases.
There were some early anime released in the West that, for
example, the original film is two hours. And the producer
said, 'hey, this is for kids, they, they're not going to be
able to sit for two hours, let's cut 30 minutes of it.' An
example of that is 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,' which
is a very famous, Miyazaki Hayao film, which was I think they cut
20 or 30 minutes of it, they renamed it 'Warriors of the
Wind.' They took emphasis off Nausicaä, the main character,
because you can have a girl be the main character, right?
Alyssa Smith: Unthinkable
Matt Schley: Unthinkable! And it just became this weird mess. It
doesn't make any sense. And fans in the States started to demand
from their licensors that 'Hey, we want to see the whole movie.
We want to see it given at least an accurate English dub. We also
want the option to watch it in subtitled form.' And that grows,
so in the mid '90s, you've got stuff like 'Dragon Ball,'
'Sailor Moon'. Eventually 'Pokemon' comes on air. As you
mentioned, 'Pokemon' is still a bit of a situation where they're
changing the names of characters and things like that. But you've
got a whole generation that doesn't have to search out anime
on tapes or get it from friends or whatever, you can just turn
on TV and it's there.
Alyssa Smith: So I think a sign that the West had really started
to accept anime as you know, a legitimate genre was when
'Spirited Away' won the Oscar in 2003.
Clip: And the Oscar goes to … Let's see. 'Spirited Away.'
Hayao Miyazaki.
Matt Schley: Yeah, there was huge 'Spirited Away' is the 2001
film from Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. That was the
first and remains the only Japanese anime film to win the
Oscar. That film had Disney pushing behind it in the
publicity department. Nevertheless, that was a huge
thing for anime. Miyazaki, he didn't go because America was in
the middle of the Iraq War, which he was against.
Eventually, he did win a separate lifetime Academy Award,
which he went and gave a very charming speech you can watch on
YouTube, that remains the only enemy film to win an Oscar but a
few films have been nominated since then. The film that
probably has the best shot this year is Belle the new Hosoda
Mamoru film.
Alyssa Smith: The one that got the 13 minute standing ovation
at Cannes?
Matt Schley: That's the one.
Alyssa Smith: What would you say is the relationship between
anime, and the build up of Japan's soft power?
Matt Schley: I think it's all part of a piece you know, you've
got an anime becoming more popular, you've got video games,
you've got Japanese technology, people really looking to Japan
as being a place they want to go kind of dreamland and anime was
definitely huge part of that. Especially when you get to the
'90s and 2000s you get a lot more anime that's set in Japan
that it's obviously Japanese, not just the kind of sci-fi,
neo-Tokyo 'Akira' stuff, but stuff where you can really get a
look at kind of what Japan looks like. It becomes a great way for
people to kind of peer into the nation.
Alyssa Smith: Well, then, let's move into the 2010s which was a
pretty important decade for anime. What would you say were
the key events during this time?
Matt Schley: So anime continues to be more and more popular
abroad. You've also got the retirement, supposed retirement
of Miyazaki Hayao.
Alyssa Smith: The first time.
Matt Schley: Actually well, the about … every time he makes a
movie, he says 'This is the last one. This is the last one.' But
yeah, there was kind of a sense for many, many years, that when
you released a theatrical anime film, that didn't have a manga
behind it, the general public wouldn't go to see an original
anime film. Unless it was directed by Miyazaki. His films
always did really well. Other original anime films tended not
to do that well.
Alyssa Smith: So aside from Ghibli films, it was sort of
thought that if you didn't have all the manga series, or like
television series to back it up, then the film itself wouldn't do
very well?
Matt Schley: That's right. Yeah. Now that changed in 2016. Three
films came out that year, which were all relatively huge hits,
especially 'Your Name,' Makoto Shinkai's film, which became
this giant hit. For a time it was Japan's highest grossing
film worldwide. It's since been eclipsed by 'Spirited Away,'
which we just talked about, because 'Spirited Away' got its
official release in China two years ago. So that's kind of
cheating, right?
You also had two films, which were a little bit more modest
hits: 'In this Corner of the World,' which is a kind of
prewar and war film set and in Hiroshima. And you had 'A Silent
Voice,' which was more arty film, from Kyoto Animation. All
those films did really well. And they kind of busted that myth
that only Miyazaki could do well, with the general audience.
Alyssa Smith: So between 2002, around the time 'Spirited Away,'
was being released and 2020, the Japanese animation industry more
than doubled in size with an annual revenue of $21 billion.
What would you say are some of the reasons for this booming
economy?
Matt Schley: Well, we can't discount the foreign market,
which has exploded from 2010 to 2020. You go from about $2.5
billion to about $12 billion. Not just the West, but also
countries like South Korea, and China, Vietnam, Thailand. So all
across Europe, Asia, the Americas, people getting into
anime has been has been huge. The domestic market has also
gone up. Not as dramatically, but it has gone up as well.
People are really into this Japanese cartoon stuff.
Alyssa Smith: Who knew?
Matt Schley: Who knew? Who knew? So you see a lot of companies
now trying to capitalize on the popularity of anime in the West.
We talked before about the '80s and '90s, right? Where you've
got essentially what we would now call startups, companies of
two or three or four people, slapping some subtitles onto
whatever they could licence from Japan, Japan saying that, 'You
want to licence this?! Okay, fine. Here you go." These really
passionate fans releasing stuff for other passionate fans. At
some point, because anime gets so popular. As often happens,
these companies get bought by bigger companies. And now you've
got these really giant streaming companies, or other home video
companies kind of dominating the licencing industry in the West.
Alyssa Smith: Another reason for this huge boom would be that
people are getting into … they're they're hoping for more
of an interactive experience, right? So like, people are going
to live events, concerts and things like that?
Matt Schley: Yeah, that's been a huge thing. About 10 years ago,
one of the largest sources of income in the industry,
especially in the domestic industry, was Bluray and DVD
sales. Those numbers have gone down because well, everyone's
streaming. And the numbers for more interactive experiences
exactly like you said, have gone up. People are want to live
anime, they don't just want to experience it at home on a
screen. They want to go out and make friends
Alyssa Smith: Do cosplay.
Matt Schley: And do cosplay. Cosplay is huge. To a certain
extent, in Japan, it's huge. In the West, you've got anime
conventions in the West, which are which are huge. So yeah,
people want to bring anime into their into their lives.
Alyssa Smith: Now you've mentioned streaming a few times.
So let's talk about the impact of those streaming services. One
thing that really stands out is the success of 'Demon Slayer.'
And before the film 'Mugen Train' came out, it was a
series and that was available on a lot of different streaming
platforms, right? So do you think that contributed to the
huge success of the film itself?
Matt Schley: Yeah, 'Demon Slayer,' it had kind of all the
pieces to become a huge hit right? It was a moderately
successful manga. On top of that it had a pretty successful anime
series. Plus, it was at a time when everybody was stuck at home
Alyssa Smith: During the pandemic.
Matt Schley: During the pandemic. And so word of mouth
spread about this 'Demon Slayer' thing. As you mentioned, it was
not locked into one specific streaming platform. And that
really primed the pump for when the film came out in 2020.
Everybody had read the manga, or watched the show really dying
for something to do. The corona numbers weren't so bad when the
film came out. And so, the floodgates opened. And it became
Japan's highest grossing film of all time.
Alyssa Smith: So major companies like Disney and Netflix are
seeing the popularity of anime. And it looks like they're
aggressively moving into the sphere, right? And they're
starting to produce their own original content?
Matt Schley: Yeah, that's right. Netflix has its own original
content. For the purposes of full disclosure, let me just
mention here that I do some consulting work for Netflix.
Disney Plus has started producing anime, Netflix has
started producing anime, Crunchyroll has started
producing anime. And yes, they are going beyond simply
licencing anime, putting dubs and subs on it and releasing it.
Now they are making their own stuff.
Alyssa Smith: And we're also seeing international
collaborations, right? So these big companies are also working
with maybe smaller Japanese studios.
Matt Schley: Yeah, that's right. That's right. So one example
from last year was 'Star Wars Visions,' which is a bunch of
small 'Star Wars' stories made by different anime studios.
You've got the new 'Blade Runner' show. If you told me
when I was 13 or 14 that there was going to be a 'Blade Runner'
anime and my brain would have exploded. These kind of quasi
anime that are maybe they've got a American director, but they're
directed at a Japanese studio. So yeah, the amount of of
international coproductions is growing.
Alyssa Smith: Well, something interesting that's happened is,
in 2020, the overseas market for anime surpassed the domestic
market for the first time. Why would you say that is?
Matt Schley: Yeah, this was a pretty big deal. This was a
trend that was already happening, but the pandemic
accelerated it. Much like all other things, right? You could
see the numbers inching up year by year in the foreign market.
And in 2020, they did surpass the domestic market in Japan.
Now those events that we talked about earlier, going to animate
concerts, going to anime live talk events and stuff like that.
We couldn't really do that in 2020. So that might have been a
reason why the domestic market dropped a little bit.
Conversely, people in the West or in other countries in Asia
sitting around in 2020 without a lot to do, maybe discovering
anime for the first time, you've binged all the live action you
can … 'Oh, here's this library of this crazy cartoons from
Japan. Let's check this out.' So it was a combination of those
two factors.
Alyssa Smith: Obviously, like you said, the pandemic had a
huge effect on the consumption side of anime. But what about
Matt Schley: So early on in the, in the pandemic, a lot of shows
production?
were getting delayed. A lot of that was due to the global
supply chain, which everybody keeps talking about, right? A
lot of anime is produced, actually, in countries like
South Korea and China. Typically, the creative work is
done largely in Japan. And then the kind of more I don't want to
say grunt work, but what you call in between frames, which
are the frames between the keyframes that make the
animation look more smooth, are done in, again, South Korea,
China, Vietnam. And it was hard to get that stuff back and
forth, right.
The anime industry has typically not been an industry with a lot
of slack, everything's kind of done last minute. There's
stories of people running the tapes to the broadcaster at the
last minute, shoving the tape in the thing. And this the show
getting on air and
Alyssa Smith: Hoping it all works out?
Matt Schley: Hoping it all works out. And there are cases even
long before the pandemic of shows that that have been
delayed by weeks or months or whatever. So take that, add a
pandemic, things get delayed, right. So that was the early
days of the pandemic, things are much better. Now. One of the
reasons that things are much better now is because more
people have embraced digital technology,
Alyssa Smith: Because they were working remotely, or from home?
Matt Schley: That's right, exactly. Now, you might think
that anime is produced largely in computers. But a very
important step in the process, which is the drawing of
keyframes is actually still largely done on pencil and
paper. Those keyframes are then scanned into the computer where
all the colouring and, and post processing happens. It's one of
the things that I love about anime, the fact that that first
step is still done on pencil and paper. But as you can imagine,
once you've got the pandemic going, it becomes a lot harder
to get that paper from one place to another, for people to
assemble in great numbers in these very poorly ventilated,
small animation studios. So a lot of animators have embraced
either using tablets and things like that to draw keyframes
directly in in digital. Or they've kind of hooked up their
own home studio where they do it on pencil on paper, and then
they scan it in and they email it to the studio. As you can
imagine that has positives and negatives.
Alyssa Smith: You talked a little bit about the work
environment for these animators. But one thing that comes up a
lot when we talk about anime is the poor working conditions that
many of these creators have to deal with. So if anime is
thriving, why are these workers being treated so poorly?
Matt Schley: Yeah, it's a really complicated question. But there
are a few reasons. Like any creative industry, there's
always this kind of idea that well, you should do it for the
love because it's something you really want to do. Because of
the way the industry is structured, most animators, even
if they work at a single studio, are considered freelancers or
independent contractors. So instead of being paid a monthly
salary, they're often paid by frame or by shot. Nobody's ever
gotten rich on this, but it was possible to make a decent living
in the '60s and '70s and '80s, when anime looked a little bit
less complicated than it does now. If you look at a frame of
'Detective Conan' from the '90s. And you look at a frame of
'Demon Slayer,' for example, it's just way more intricate
these days. But the wages for for a frame have not gone up.
Right? So you're spending three or four times the amount on a
single frame of animation, getting paid the same 200, 300
yen.
Alyssa Smith: And there's this mindset where the companies are
saying this is how it's worked for decades, right? So we're not
going to change that, you just have to deal with it and do it
for the love of the work?
Matt Schley: There's that, there's the fact that a lot of
studios are run by former animators or former directors or
whatever, who are maybe better at making anime than they are at
making business decisions a lot of the time. There's also this
thing called the production committee system, the seisaku
iinkai, have you heard of this? A lot of people blame this
system for animators' kind of stagnant wages. Simply put, this
production committee, when you fund an anime, you don't fund it
with one company, you get a bunch of companies together. So
you get the music rights go to this company, they put in a
little money. The DVD company puts in some money, the
streaming service, recently, they put in some money, so
you're kind of hedging your bets right? But that makes it so the
studio while they might be producing the anime. They're not
often reaping the rewards. So they don't have, for example,
royalties. If an anime does poorly, they make a set amount
of money. If an anime does well, they make a set amount of money,
right? And they're often not the best at negotiating, is what a
lot of my sources have told me.
Alyssa Smith: Alright, so then how much are animators getting
paid?
Matt Schley: Yeah, so there's this group called the Japanese
Animation Creators Association. They're known as Jennika. They
do a survey every I believe it's four years to ask animators,
hey, how you doing? And their most recent survey, which is
2019, found that on average animators in their 20s make ¥1.1
million a year. A million sounds like a lot until you do the
math. And you realise that's about $10,000 a year, which is
less than minimum wage, you know, it's unlivable. Things get
a little bit better when animators move into their 30s
and 40s. People in their 30s said their average was ¥3.5
million yen, which is a little bit over $30,000. Again, not
great. Nobody's getting rich on this stuff, but livable.
Now the problem is, because the people in their 20s are only
making $10,000 a year, living in a place like Tokyo, which is
where all the anime studios are, they simply can't afford it. And
so you've got an NPO called Animation Supporters who have
done a survey that said that about 90% of animators quit the
industry within two or three years. So as it is now, it's
kind of an unsustainable system.
Alyssa Smith: So with all these animators dropping out of the
industry after a few years, would you say it impacts the
quality of the animation?
Matt Schley: Yes, there are a lot of reports out there
recently about productions that are not able to find enough
animators. So recently, a big trend has been studios going on
places like Twitter, looking at artist profiles of people
abroad, saying 'Hey, do you want to work in the anime industry?'
That's great for animators who live abroad who've always wanted
to work in anime. Now they can. And from what I hear, it's very
easy to get a job. Because they're so strapped for
animators. That said, that doesn't really point to a
healthy and sustainable industry.
Alyssa Smith: Right. Are there any efforts to improve the
industry?
Matt Schley: Thankfully, there are. There are a few training
programmes that have been opened by different companies. Netflix
teamed up with a studio called WIT to set up a kind of training
academy, which is giving people a stipend and hooking them up
with senior animators. There are also studios out there that have
been doing this for a longer time. The most famous example of
this is Kyoto Animation. Kyoto Animation has, for a long time,
had a really sustainable philosophy. They hire people and
they actually give them the skills to succeed. They hire a
lot of people on salary. They're based outside of Tokyo, so the
living expenses are a little bit more reasonable. And thanks to
Kyoto Animation being really forward looking, they grew to be
a studio that has some of the best looking animation out
there. As readers and listeners know, really tragically, in
2019, they were the victim of an arson attack that killed almost
30 of their employees. So that was a major setback for that
really, really admirable studio. Fortunately, they're still
around, and they are producing new anime.
Alyssa Smith: So then these companies are really focusing on
nurturing their talent and trying to retain people for long
term.
Matt Schley: That's right. That's right.
Alyssa Smith: And you're seeing that that has a direct effect on
the quality of the animations that they're producing?
Matt Schley: Absolutely. And when you've got the same
animators over a period of five or 10 years, not only animators
but character designers and directors and things like that,
you kind of get a house style. Every anime they produce is
going to have that kind of Kyoto Animation feel to it.
Alyssa Smith: You've talked about how we're moving away from
the more traditional style, and how bigger players like Netflix
and Disney are getting involved, you know, more non-Japanese
companies. We're seeing a lot of changes in anime. So then, you
know, we have to ask the question, what is anime? Is it
the storylines? Is it the visuals? How would you define
anime?
Matt Schley: Yeah, this is the million dollar question. This is
the huge debate heard all around the internet. I'll put it this
way. There are fans that really care who made it, who's the
director, is the large percentage of the creative staff
Japanese or not? There are fans that really care about that
authenticity. And there are fans that that don't, there are
people that love that anime look, and they don't care
whether that's made by a Western studio or a studio from South
Korea. If it's got that kind of anime look and feel that they
like, they don't care. I think both of those viewpoints are
entirely valid. And I think the industry is big enough that it
can handle both.
We talked about the international market surpassing
the domestic market for the first time in 2020. I think that
trend will probably continue, based solely on the the
population of Japan for example, right? It's going down and so
So it's trying to retain the heart of anime then?
there's a limit to what you can sell in Japan. That said, the
domestic market is still huge, it's still half of the market
for anime. So I think you're still gonna see plenty of what
we might call 'more authentic anime,' aimed at a Japanese
audience, and enjoyed by a western audience, but not made
for the Western audience. You're also gonna see a tonne of anime
aimed at a Western or an Asian or European audience.
Yeah. And ask 10 people what the heart of enemy is, and you'll
get 10 different answers, right? Again, it's not a it's not a
genre, it's a medium. There's anime that I hate, but people
that I work with love and vice versa, right? But there's kind
of this nebulous aesthetic or something that I think we all
think of as Japanese animation.
Alyssa Smith: Well, thank you for joining me today, Matt. It
was really nice talking to you.
Matt Schley: Thanks for having me.
Oscar Boyd: On Tuesday, Japan recorded 62,599 cases of COVID
19 nationwide — its highest tally since the pandemic began.
With cases still rising, the government is set to expand
quasi states of emergency to 34 of Japan's 47 prefectures.
Daycare centers have been particularly affected by the
recent surge in cases with more than 300 forced to shut due to
students or teachers testing positive.
Also, over the last week, demonstrations have taken place
in several countries against Japan's strict border measures,
which continue to prevent non-resident foreign nationals
such as hopeful students, academics and workers from
entering the country. According to organisers, more protests are
planned later this month in Germany, Austria, Spain and
Argentina, as well as outside the Prime Minister's office in
Tokyo in February.
This episode was hosted by The Japan Times' culture editor,
Alyssa I. Smith and produced and edited by me, Oscar Boyd. Our
guest this week was Matt Schley, a big thank you to him. You can
see all of his articles on The Japan Times' website, and I've
linked a couple in the show notes. That's it for this week.
Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to rate him
review Deep Dive recently. It helps more people to discover
the show, so please do keep those coming.
Until next time, as always, podtsukaresama.