The anime industry is thriving, now more than ever before. It is one today that is under constant growth. The market suffered with ups and downs for the past twenty years, but this situation changed in 2022. According to data from the annual report by the Association of Japanese Animation (AJA), founded by Yuji Nunokawa, the anime industry reached a historical landmark in terms of profits, a feat that had not been reached since 2002. According to the AJA, the Japanese animation industry presented a growth of more than 13% between 2021 and 2022, generating a profit of US$ 20.6 billion.

The report by the AJA also states that the sector had a growth of 96.7%, after a slight decrease because of the pandemic in 2020, with the return of “live entertainment”, that is, theatrical screenings, concerts, and events, probably as a result of the decrease in the restrictions imposed during the pandemic in Japan and the rest of the world. In Japan, One Piece Film Red, The First Slam Dunk, Jujutsu Kaisen 0, and Suzume no Tojimari were the highest-grossing anime films of 2022.

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Overlook

One Piece Film Red Anime Industry

The anime industry capitalized a lot with the return of live entertainment. In addition to this, the big feat of the anime industry in 2022 arises out of the increase in the streaming of anime series via the internet. This sector presented an increase of about 65.91% in 2022 only. In spite of not specifying the reasons for the growth, the same report names Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Crunchyroll as big players in this increase.

Also, Disney has been massively investing in the anime market, not only with productions in the sector but also because it became responsible for licensing and distribution of important anime series outside Japan. If the anime industry is thriving, why is it that we have such a bleak scenario for the artists and workers in this booming industry, who have been facing huge difficulties that include, being not limited to, karoshi, low pay, and dissatisfaction?

What Is Karoshi?

Fluffy Isekai Karoshi

The upcoming anime series Fluffy Isekai will follow the story of an MC who was a victim of karoshi before reincarnating in another world. While not exclusive to Japanese people, they actually have a specific term for “death by overwork”, which happens out of a sudden, which is Karoshi (過労死). Japanese people are famous for “working hard”, but that carries a lot of negative implications, as evidenced by the massive number of passengers in a state of semi-torpor in trains. Because they had been working until very late at night, or because they got drunk after work, in search of stress relief, many of the workers do not even return home to sleep. Reports of Japanese professionals dying after exhaustive working hours have been on the news for decades now. The dismal statistics confirm that this is not a matter of urban legend either.

Karoshi is a social phenomenon that was initially identified in 1987 when the Japanese Ministry of Health started to record data after the sudden death of a series of high-level executives. Japanese workers are known to work more than fifteen hours a day and spend about four hours commuting. This problem is so generalized that, if death is considered karoshi, the family of the victim receives compensation from the government of about US$ 20.000/year, in addition to a millionaire indemnification from the company. For the death of a worker to be deemed karoshi, the victim needs to have an overwork of more than one hundred hours in the month before said victim’s death, or an overwork of eighty hours for two consecutive months or more within the time period of the six months before the victim’s death.

Karoshi is a major social issue in Japan, and this phenomenon that leads to death from diseases and mental disorders caused by overwork is on the rise worldwide, with WHO/ILO Joint estimating, in 2021, that long working hours are killing more than 745,000 people a year. The heavy duties, disproportionate quotas, and hard-to-achieve targets force workers to work illegal overtime, pushing them to extreme mental and physical limits. Sudden deaths and constant health issues of mangaka and animators raised a lot of concerns regarding their working conditions. Even if death by overwork is not exclusive to Japan or other Asian countries, the statistics are alarming.

Death By Overwork — Not Exclusive To Japan

Solo Leveling Karoshi

The term karoshi was officially coined in 1978 when an increasing number of people suffered fatal strokes and heart attacks attributed to overwork.Chinese people have a term for that too, guolaosi (過勞死/过劳死). A content moderator at the Chinese video streaming website Bilibili died in February 2022 while working a Lunar New Year holiday shift. South Koreans have also coined a term for “death by overwork” — gwarosa, alternatively romanized as kwarosa (hangul: 과로사). The death of 37-year-old Jang Sun-rak in 2022 following an unexpected health problem also raised concerns in the webtoon industry regarding the webtoon artists’ inadequate and harsh conditions. He had been the illustrator for the worldwide popular fantasy action webtoon series Solo Leveling.

With webtoons becoming the next big thing on a global level, readers are naturally seeking more quality illustrations and stories, and the anime and k-drama industries, which have been adapting webtoons into these media, such as Lookism, Tower Of God, and Tomorrow, also have their eyes on the most popular productions, which results in the artists having workloads that are more excessive than ever. This month, the Korea Occupational Agency Report confirmed that webtoon creators have been suffering physically, mentally, and emotionally from this industry that has its artists overworking on a routine basis.

Gloomy Past, Present — And Future?

Anime Industry 2

While karoshi is not exclusive to these sectors, it is also not the single major problem that affects the anime, manga, and webtoon industries. But then, if the anime industry is thriving, why are the situations of animators and other professionals in this sector still so gloomy? Is there any chance of change for the better in sight?

Death by overwork is a negative legacy of rapid economic growth, and indicators appoint to the worsening of this chart, considering the increasing boom of anime that reached its peak in 2022 and tends to increase even more. It is important to mention and report these problems since consumers need to be aware of the problems faced by those who create the beautiful and sometimes high-grossing anime series and films we love so much. The paradox is real — while anime films such as One Piece Film Red, The First Slam Dunk, and the most lucrative anime series, such as Jujutsu Kaisen, Tokyo Revengers, SPY X FAMILY, and My Hero Academia infuse money in the industry, this same industry does not repay most of its creators with the same love AND money.

Roots Of Evil

Anime Industry

Nonetheless, the roots for this dreadful situation the animators find themselves in can be found in Japanese cultural behaviors too. Being people who value selflessness, it can be easily turned into self-sacrifice and self-flagellation at the office. The mindset that “teaches” that you need to work harder, or the project would fail, and you would let other people down is the very reason why Japan reached such prominence and produces tons of anime series and films that people love so much. Even with increases in salaries since 2015, those who work in the anime industry and are in their twenties or early thirties are still paid below the national average. Allegedly, Osamu Tezuka’s groundbreaking series Astro Boy (1963) set a precedent for low pay in the industry, but, even if that is indeed proven to be true, it is not an excuse for low pay and poor working conditions that might cause an exodus from the anime industry six decades later.

In 2010, a 28-year-old animator killed himself shortly following him quitting his job, after having worked hundreds of overtime hours without pay for several months, documented in his online journal. It was also documented that he had taken only three days off in ten months and used to work as late as four in the morning. Since most animators are self-employed or freelancers, they receive their wages on a pay-per-project basis, meaning the companies can refuse to pay them if they do not complete more work.

The infamous rule of capitalism applies — growth in demand, increased working hours, more occupational health issues, low pay, and the cycle repeats itself. Now that Chinese and South Korean animations are starting to get more fans abroad, some Japanese animators found out that they can earn more money working for the Chinese animation industry. In 2022, veteran animator Jun Aria claimed he was offered a hundred times the Japanese market price to supervise a Chinese project, while the politician Hiroyuki Moriyama confirmed that wages for animators in China can be an order of magnitude higher than in Japan, and they can even work from their homes in Japan for the Chinese animation industry, which leads the country to a deficit in staff for their industry. Or the artists who still want to work on Japanese productions will end up piling work for both the domestic and the Chinese industries, or other international animation producers, to make ends meet and possibly join the dreadful statistics of karoshi.

Sources: Erzat, BBC, Korean Times, Cartoon Brew, Borgen Project

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