5 ms·

Are the profits not shared with the animators? It boggles my mind that an anime as popular as One Punch Man got awarded to a bottom-of-the-barrel anime studio

by umvi 6y ago

Are the profits not shared with the animators? It boggles my mind that an anime as popular as One Punch Man got awarded to a bottom-of-the-barrel anime studio for S2. I mean, you can see the stark contrast between seasons 1 and 2. Season 2 has very sparse action scenes, and heavily utilizes off-screen talking (i.e. the camera is panning some static background while a conversation is taking place so the animators don't have to animate). That leads me to believe the money/profits generated by the success of a season is getting eaten by ip owners and middlemen, and that the studio itself is fighting for the scraps. If so, that incentive structure needs to change if you want to increase the quality of the anime. Can anyone who knows more about the anime business model in Japan chime in? Is this a case of IP owners holding an iron grip on the rights and profits and being stingy with anime studios? At any rate, I'm surprised more American-based anime studios aren't springing up to poach Japan's top animation talent with top pay.

minikites 6y ago
If workers were paid more, that leaves less money for the executives, who are the real heroes under capitalism.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
gruez 6y ago
>If so, that incentive structure needs to change if you want to increase the quality of the anime. The incentive is that if the anime is low quality, people won't watch anymore.
- minikites 6y ago
  How does that affect the executive making that decision, who is already wealthy? It's not like executives are ever punished for poorly running a company.
  - gruez 6y ago
    >How does that affect the executive making that decision, who is already wealthy But your other comment[1] seems to suggest that executives love money and want to make more, so they would definitely be affected by that decision. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26275488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26275488 >It's not like executives are ever punished for poorly running a company. Their bonuses are linked to company performance, and they can be fired just like any other job.
    - minikites 6y ago
      >Their bonuses are linked to company performance, and they can be fired just like any other job. So they get fired, then what? They get hired by another company for more money because now they have experience. That's what I mean about not being punished. No executive ever ends up destitute and on the streets. We should strive for all workers to have the same safety net as executives.
    - fishmaster 6y ago
      > Their bonuses are linked to company performance As history shows this isn't really true.
s_m_t 6y ago
You shouldn't think of the anime in isolation. They are multimedia franchises. The anime is there to sell the manga, the figures, the light novel, etc.
- andrewmcwatters 6y ago
  It's probably widely why Pokémon is so successful. It's not about the show, it's about selling all the other products. The show is one big advertisement. And it's good, too. Or at least it was, when I was a kid watching it on a CRT. I have no idea what it's like now.
  - konart 6y ago
    Still there. Also Gundam. The whole franchise was initially a way to promote model kit :D
    - matheusmoreira 6y ago
      Gundam has some really amazing animation though. So many beautifully animated battles! I do spot some reuse here and there when I rewatch but still. It never struck me as a mere advertisement for merchandise.
  - jolmg 6y ago
    That reminds me of how excited I got when I got a pokedex and workable pokeballs from Santa. It's been a long time since there were only 150 Pokemon. I wonder if they're even still using pokedexes in the series. I also got a couple of digivices from Digimon, from the second and fourth(?) season. I remember they had story modes and contacts at the top for multiplayer gameplay, as well as a walking sensor for story advancement which you could cheat by just shaking the device for hours. My friend with whom I battled it out never had a chance because he actually tried walking the distance. That's until he noticed the gap between our digimon was getting too big despite all the walking he did, and I ended up telling him the trick. Quite a facepalm moment right there. Those were neat little devices for our ages back then.
verall 6y ago
In the traditional model, the anime is marketing material for the franchise. Money is in figures, merchandise, and manga, which usually all existed before the anime was created. Generally only established studios with plenty of funds do original (not first portrayed in another medium) anime. OPM went to JC for S2 because the very expensive S1 from Madhouse had already satisfied the goal of bringing tons of new fans to the franchise. This is changing though, as anime is getting cheaper to produce and international viewers are increasing.
- noodle 6y ago
  > OPM went to JC for S2 because the very expensive S1 from Madhouse had already satisfied the goal of bringing tons of new fans to the franchise. IIRC it was also scheduling. Madhouse was booked up for a while.
ThrowawayR2 6y ago
A likelier hypothesis is that for every One Punch Man, there's a dozen mediocre series that flop and need to be carried by the profits of the series that succeed, analogous to the games industry and Hollywood movies, which are also hit-driven entertainment.
- Balgair 6y ago
  I'd hazard a guess that the industry is Power Law distributed, as opposed to Gaussian distributed. Power Laws take a few names depending on your field, but some common ones are Pareto distributions, winner-take-all, or fat-headed/long-tailed. The underlying math is the same though. These distributions are also quite wide ranging, everything from tax bills to the size of asteroids is Power Law distributed. If anyone knows the 'mechanism' as to why so many disparate measures end up as Power Laws, I'd love to read more on it, as I;m sure other HNers would too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law
  - mr_toad 6y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabási–Albert_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabási–Albert_model
phailhaus 6y ago
> Are the profits not shared with the animators? Doesn't matter. Even if profit sharing were implemented, the boss gets to choose the percentage of the profit that animators get. Due to supply and demand, they'll still get the short end of the stick. Definitely better than nothing, but the problem will continue to exist in another form.
ramy_d 6y ago
https://deadline.com/2021/02/avatar-the-last-airbender-franchise-expansion-launch-nickelodeons-avatar-studios-animated-theatrical-film-1234699594/ https://deadline.com/2021/02/avatar-the-last-airbender-franc...
mc10 6y ago
I think there are multiple hypothesized reasons, but I haven't seen any numerical figures so it's hard to confirm how impactful each is: - Anime production committees (https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2017/05/02/what-is-an-animes-production-committee/ https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2017/05/02/what-is-an-animes-pr...) take a large portion of the profit from a show, and studios often see very little (they're often not on the production committees). - If the studio doesn't own the IP, they'll likely have to pay a hefty amount for it. - There's not much actual revenue from anime: historically studios have tried to monetize via extraordinarily expensive DVDs of the episodes (such that only die-hard fans would buy them), and merchandise, but apparently the studios don't even get all of the revenue from these sources. Streaming is becoming more popular but I'm not sure how much revenue Crunchyroll/Netflix/etc. shares with the studios. - Anime is often seen as an advertisement for the original source material (usually manga), so there's less incentive for certain parties on the production committee to monetize.
stevenwoo 6y ago
For a counter example of why American-based anime studios aren't popping up, an ostensibly American production, The Simpsons, has had Korean studios in the credits for the major parts of animation from the very first episode, same with Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you watch The Simpsons on DVD, in one of the season one specials Groenig talks about getting the animatics from Korea and having to go back and forth with the Korean studio until they captured the look that was desired. The producers will outsource to get the cheapest production. IIRC American animation in all media was dwindling at this point because studios didn't want to pay Americans to do the animation. The current Japanese studio doing Attack on Titan is outsourcing components to Vietnamese and Chinese studios probably for the same sort of reason.
- zerocrates 6y ago
  Outsourcing of at least parts of the production is essentially totally widespread, in both the US and Japan, as far as I'm aware.
Smithalicious 6y ago
JC Staff, a "bottom of the barrel studio"? Which universe? (and I say that as someone who personally really doesn't like the studio)
ulzeraj 6y ago
I don't think the article makes this clear but animators are the people who are responsible to create the frames between key frames designed by the actual designers. This also means that the person described in the article is competing with studios in China and other asian countries that do the same work for very cheap prices because they have access to cheap labor.

by umvi 6y ago

minikites 6y ago

If workers were paid more, that leaves less money for the executives, who are the real heroes under capitalism.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

gruez 6y ago

>If so, that incentive structure needs to change if you want to increase the quality of the anime. The incentive is that if the anime is low quality, people won't watch anymore.

minikites 6y ago
How does that affect the executive making that decision, who is already wealthy? It's not like executives are ever punished for poorly running a company.
- gruez 6y ago
  >How does that affect the executive making that decision, who is already wealthy But your other comment[1] seems to suggest that executives love money and want to make more, so they would definitely be affected by that decision. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26275488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26275488 >It's not like executives are ever punished for poorly running a company. Their bonuses are linked to company performance, and they can be fired just like any other job.
  - minikites 6y ago
    >Their bonuses are linked to company performance, and they can be fired just like any other job. So they get fired, then what? They get hired by another company for more money because now they have experience. That's what I mean about not being punished. No executive ever ends up destitute and on the streets. We should strive for all workers to have the same safety net as executives.
  - fishmaster 6y ago
    > Their bonuses are linked to company performance As history shows this isn't really true.

s_m_t 6y ago

You shouldn't think of the anime in isolation. They are multimedia franchises. The anime is there to sell the manga, the figures, the light novel, etc.

andrewmcwatters 6y ago
It's probably widely why Pokémon is so successful. It's not about the show, it's about selling all the other products. The show is one big advertisement. And it's good, too. Or at least it was, when I was a kid watching it on a CRT. I have no idea what it's like now.
- konart 6y ago
  Still there. Also Gundam. The whole franchise was initially a way to promote model kit :D
  - matheusmoreira 6y ago
    Gundam has some really amazing animation though. So many beautifully animated battles! I do spot some reuse here and there when I rewatch but still. It never struck me as a mere advertisement for merchandise.
- jolmg 6y ago
  That reminds me of how excited I got when I got a pokedex and workable pokeballs from Santa. It's been a long time since there were only 150 Pokemon. I wonder if they're even still using pokedexes in the series. I also got a couple of digivices from Digimon, from the second and fourth(?) season. I remember they had story modes and contacts at the top for multiplayer gameplay, as well as a walking sensor for story advancement which you could cheat by just shaking the device for hours. My friend with whom I battled it out never had a chance because he actually tried walking the distance. That's until he noticed the gap between our digimon was getting too big despite all the walking he did, and I ended up telling him the trick. Quite a facepalm moment right there. Those were neat little devices for our ages back then.

verall 6y ago

In the traditional model, the anime is marketing material for the franchise. Money is in figures, merchandise, and manga, which usually all existed before the anime was created. Generally only established studios with plenty of funds do original (not first portrayed in another medium) anime. OPM went to JC for S2 because the very expensive S1 from Madhouse had already satisfied the goal of bringing tons of new fans to the franchise. This is changing though, as anime is getting cheaper to produce and international viewers are increasing.

noodle 6y ago
> OPM went to JC for S2 because the very expensive S1 from Madhouse had already satisfied the goal of bringing tons of new fans to the franchise. IIRC it was also scheduling. Madhouse was booked up for a while.

ThrowawayR2 6y ago

A likelier hypothesis is that for every One Punch Man, there's a dozen mediocre series that flop and need to be carried by the profits of the series that succeed, analogous to the games industry and Hollywood movies, which are also hit-driven entertainment.

Balgair 6y ago
I'd hazard a guess that the industry is Power Law distributed, as opposed to Gaussian distributed. Power Laws take a few names depending on your field, but some common ones are Pareto distributions, winner-take-all, or fat-headed/long-tailed. The underlying math is the same though. These distributions are also quite wide ranging, everything from tax bills to the size of asteroids is Power Law distributed. If anyone knows the 'mechanism' as to why so many disparate measures end up as Power Laws, I'd love to read more on it, as I;m sure other HNers would too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law
- mr_toad 6y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabási–Albert_model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barabási–Albert_model

phailhaus 6y ago

> Are the profits not shared with the animators? Doesn't matter. Even if profit sharing were implemented, the boss gets to choose the percentage of the profit that animators get. Due to supply and demand, they'll still get the short end of the stick. Definitely better than nothing, but the problem will continue to exist in another form.

ramy_d 6y ago

https://deadline.com/2021/02/avatar-the-last-airbender-franchise-expansion-launch-nickelodeons-avatar-studios-animated-theatrical-film-1234699594/ https://deadline.com/2021/02/avatar-the-last-airbender-franc...

mc10 6y ago

I think there are multiple hypothesized reasons, but I haven't seen any numerical figures so it's hard to confirm how impactful each is: - Anime production committees (https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2017/05/02/what-is-an-animes-production-committee/ https://blog.sakugabooru.com/2017/05/02/what-is-an-animes-pr...) take a large portion of the profit from a show, and studios often see very little (they're often not on the production committees). - If the studio doesn't own the IP, they'll likely have to pay a hefty amount for it. - There's not much actual revenue from anime: historically studios have tried to monetize via extraordinarily expensive DVDs of the episodes (such that only die-hard fans would buy them), and merchandise, but apparently the studios don't even get all of the revenue from these sources. Streaming is becoming more popular but I'm not sure how much revenue Crunchyroll/Netflix/etc. shares with the studios. - Anime is often seen as an advertisement for the original source material (usually manga), so there's less incentive for certain parties on the production committee to monetize.

stevenwoo 6y ago

For a counter example of why American-based anime studios aren't popping up, an ostensibly American production, The Simpsons, has had Korean studios in the credits for the major parts of animation from the very first episode, same with Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you watch The Simpsons on DVD, in one of the season one specials Groenig talks about getting the animatics from Korea and having to go back and forth with the Korean studio until they captured the look that was desired. The producers will outsource to get the cheapest production. IIRC American animation in all media was dwindling at this point because studios didn't want to pay Americans to do the animation. The current Japanese studio doing Attack on Titan is outsourcing components to Vietnamese and Chinese studios probably for the same sort of reason.

zerocrates 6y ago
Outsourcing of at least parts of the production is essentially totally widespread, in both the US and Japan, as far as I'm aware.

Smithalicious 6y ago

JC Staff, a "bottom of the barrel studio"? Which universe? (and I say that as someone who personally really doesn't like the studio)

ulzeraj 6y ago

I don't think the article makes this clear but animators are the people who are responsible to create the frames between key frames designed by the actual designers. This also means that the person described in the article is competing with studios in China and other asian countries that do the same work for very cheap prices because they have access to cheap labor.