ABSTRACT
Internationally, animators have difficulty making a living from their art, and in Japan it is surprisingly challenging to do so. The country is a huge market for all kinds of cinema, including animation, but Japan-produced animation has a weak business model. Anime, which is the most popular kind of Japanese animation, is expensive to produce and does not travel very well, failing to earn big box office in other countries. The audience base for anime is enthusiastic but narrow, and, to make matters more complicated, many anime movies are pirated. Also, anime is hand drawn, with production divided into key poses plus “in-betweening,” where the poses are “connected.” As has historically been the case everywhere, in-betweening is nonglamorous, low-paid work. Therefore, the Japanese outsource a lot of that. The net result is a smallish employment pool that is poorly compensated, not an environment designed to encourage artistic growth. In fact, it is said that half of all new Japanese animators get out of the business within three years because they can’t make a living, a figure that mirrors the situation with stage and movie actors in the United States – 50 percent out within three years.17
