Not being able to sleep for three days because of work is a good reason to worry
The Japanese news site Myjitsu reported in an article that the Kimetsu no Yaiba fan community celebrated the great animation of the second season of the anime, especially in the final chapters with the fight against Daki and Gyutaro, the sixth demon moons. superiors. But nevertheless, they showed concern about the alleged lack of payments that their workers are having, according to the comments of the president of the company, where he stated that the budgets were always insufficient.
The director’s words are as follows: “All the episodes of the popular anime “Kimetsu no Yaiba” (Fuji Television Network) were receiving a lot of attention during its broadcast. However, the high quality of the animation of the work has once again brought out ” that dark side” of the anime industry. The new anime series started in December last year. Although it has always been a popular series, has been broadcast each time with “movie-level” animation, attracting more attention than ever“. The latter compares the work done on the series by this animation studio with that of Kimetsu no Yaiba: Mugen Train, which has been crowned one of the most successful in recent years.
The source quoted by Myjitsu continues: “The production company responsible for this high-quality animation is Ufotable, known for its work on the Fate/Zero series. Ufotable is often thought of as a company that makes a lot of money from the success of its anime. , but it is well known that Hikaru Kondo, president of the company, hid part of the income. He was prosecuted for violating the corporate tax law. At trial, Kondo said that animation is an industry where every project starts with red numbers.. It seems that, no matter how popular an animation they produce, it always ends up in the red because the budget that their clients (the production companies) offer is insufficient. His comments have caused quite a stir on the internet and have become a cry of pain in the animation industry.” The latter would make sense with the tax evasion that the president of the studio has done in the past years. The unreported profits of the study reflect this opacity of the executive.
The possible labor exploitation in the anime of Kimetsu no Yaiba
If true, this would not be the first time that a Japanese animation studio does not properly distribute wages to its workers or does so in an opaque manner, in addition to subjecting them to strenuous work. At the time, independent animator Mushiyo explained why he decided to leave the MAPPA studio, according to this worker, the studio had terrible working conditions for its workers during the run of Shingeki no Kyojin (Attack on Titan) as reported in Kimetsu no Yaiba. (Note: While the tweets were initially public, Mushiyo has since blocked his account.)
Mushiyo described her experience of being asked to fix the drawings over and over and over again, forcing them to work until the wee hours of the morning. He criticized MAPPA’s decision to work on four programs at the same time instead of properly training his team so that such corrections were not necessary. Mushiyo likened the work environment to a “factory” where lower-level animators are tasked with correcting problems rather than drawing. According to Mushiyo, his complaint was not unique. “As far as I can tell, about 80% of employees had similar complaints at the time.”
For its part, the Myjitsu source continues to expose the problem of Kimetsu no Yaiba: “The Kimetsu no Yaibase series premiered when the comments of the president of Ufotable were still fresh in the memory. Even so, the viewers remembered them every time a new episode with a spectacular animation work was broadcast with phrases like: “It’s scary that the animation industry will lose money despite making animation with such good drawings and good movement”; “I wonder how much money Ufotable will get for this. I hope they get paid well and do a lot of good things so that animators get rich too“; “Kimetsu no Yaiba has amazing animation. But it’s really sad to hear that even Ufotable, who does such a good job, can’t make money just by producing anime”; “As 2024 approaches, the animation industry may need to undergo various reforms”; “I don’t make us feel sad for Ufotable providing us amazing anime. I want the anime industry to pay well, so I buy the physical packages.”
These demands against Ufotable, Kimetsu no Yaiba’s animation studio, reflect the feeling of the fan community that expects the working conditions of workers to improve, as this would mean that quality is maintained, without endangering the health of staff. .
Related topics: Demon Slayer
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