On Labor: The Animation

When it comes to the animation industry, one may think of the abuses and low wages of the Japanese animation industry. The truth is that the Chinese animation studios which are on the rise endure even worse conditions. In comparison, American animation studios, where we often hear horror stories of overwork and low wages, have infinitely better working conditions than the Japanese animation industry. This is due to the difference in contracting animators and their different perspectives on animation labor.

In the United States, the animation industry has long been dominated by Disney and Universal Studios. However, studios under these two conglomerates are fairly autonomous. The nuances of American animation and the new technologies involved also makes animation a specialized profession. An animator's skillset ranges from direct modeling to motion graphics. The mode of labor is therefore far from monotonous or easily replaceable, allowing animators to be paid between 48k to 72k depending on education and experience. According to Payscale, the median salary for animators is 50k. Under prestigious studios such as those owned by Disney, an animator can make from 116k to 125k a year. The rumor that animators are overworked is also a myth. Animators are paid the same amount no matter how long they work. Due to their more integrated workflow which involves character design and motion data from actors, the job is inherently unstable, so an animator works sporadically--often during unusual hours--to meet deadlines given new keyframe assignments. Being an animator is difficult due to this instability, but the profession is treated as an art form in the United States. Indie studios are also able to compete in the market due to the popularity of individual animation commissions and the value of a unique animation style. The heavy emphasis on the artistic aspect of animation in the United States allows animators to be treated as specialized workers, much like lawyers and software engineers. This is also the main reason why American animation is moving from keyframe animating to more computer-generated graphics, which are less monotonous but require much more technical knowledge.

The Japanese animation industry is the complete reverse, but making small and steady strides towards a competitive labor market. Similar to Disney and Universal Studios, the animation industry in Japan is dominated by few studios such as Studio Ghibli, Kyoto Animation, and Toei Animation. In spite of their prominence in the industry, other animation studios are able to coexist due to the unique commission system in Japan. Studios would often collaborate with each other on a project; some studios even "rent out" their animators to other studios in urgent times. As such, the animation firm managers are more capable of monitoring individual laborers, and labor is partitioned like any other resource. The pay-by-keyframe system in the industry also promotes a less specialized class of animators, rendering their tasks monotonous and easily replaceable. Nonetheless, the status quo is being shifted by Kyoto Animation, one of the leading studios that uniquely pays its animators a salary rather than by keyframe. This shift has not been able to successfully convince the rest of the studios, which are grinding out more keyframes than Kyoto Animation per animator on average. To add on to the misfortune of the animators, the production workflow is equally unstable as American film productions. Due to the majority of animation projects being produced frame-by-frame, scenes can be more easily discarded. This allows the production to be more flexible, as drastic edits can be made without removing an entire animation sequence. However, this puts pressure on the animators, who have to work overtime to make up for the mercilessly discarded keyframes that their wages so heavily depend on. A single keyframe is worth approximately 200 yen, or slightly less than $2. A drawing can take more than an hour, which gives some perspective on how low this wage is. In the end, the animation labor market is all about the final value of an animator's work. In the case of Japan, most animators are unable to add significant value to a project due to the limited number of keyframes they can contribute and the insignificance of each keyframe. The mode of production is, therefore, the key cause of underpaid, overworked animators in Japan.

Ironically, the exploitation of laborers which is often observed in monopsonies is being observed in the more competitive Japanese animator market. The most prominent source of this anomaly has been identified as the difference in the modes of production, which substantially decreases the value of a Japanese animator. However, another reason that we make this unusual observation lies in a fundamental aspect of Japanese society--conformity. The many competing animation studios in Japan all collude to keep the wages of Japanese animators low. They are able to do this legally through the unspoken policy that is already so heavily integrated into the industry. This rule is also frequently communicated through the exchange of animators between animation studios, which is a common practice. In this sense, animators are exchanged as objects and deprived of their fundamental rights as independent workers. In fact, most animation studios do not employ full-time animators, but instead contracts freelance animators and use the signed contracts for exchanging with other studios. This makes an individual animator extremely vulnerable, especially since they can be easily "laid off." One recent study conducted by Prof. Diane Wei Lewis of Washington University in St. Louis points out that female animators are especially susceptible to exploitation, as the majority of them work from home due to household responsibilities and/or incompatibility with men in the offices. (Many sleep-deprived male animators live in their own office space, making the workplace dangerous and somewhat inappropriate for female animators) According to her studies, unemployed housewives in the late 1970s and early 1980s were targeted by animator employers who marketed the job as a self-enriching hobby. It is difficult to imagine a contract even more exploitive than the average wage of $2 per keyframe. This study also ironically demonstrates that the artistic aspect of animation, which adds significant value to an animator's work in the United States, has been exploited by the Japanese animation industry to devalue the work as a "hobby." As such, many animators are tricked into the intolerable working conditions thinking that they should feel rewarded by simply being a contributor to an art piece, and that this psychological reward somehow compensates for their low wages.

It is difficult to address the problems of Japan's animator market. Japan's democratic government has already introduced progressive labor laws such as minimum wage and maximum work time. The animation industry was able to escape the clutches of such policies by instituting the pay-by-keyframe system. This situation is difficult for the Japanese government to tackle because by disrupting this mechanism, the entire industry will effectively collapse under the pressure of its current consumer-based (rather than production-based) market model. Due to the fragility of this industry and its massive profitability, a long-term solution should be put in place to slowly transition the labor market. We can already see traces of such a solution appearing in the market, including Kyoto Animation's unique employment policies, community support for animators housing, and "safety nets" instituted by several new studios. The crisis of the Japanese animation industry introduces the nuance that the efficiency of a mode of production is directly related to the unit value of a laborer, which can be properly adjusted by introducing new technology or new skillsets to change the mode of production.