Any sufficiently powerful group of people can make 2 + 2 = 5. In this case, the Japanese animation industry is concentrated, so they can demand lots of hours fo

Any sufficiently powerful group of people can make 2 + 2 = 5. In this case, the Japanese animation industry is concentrated, so they can demand lots of hours for little pay. Of course, when you make 2 + 2 = 5, there's always a -1 floating out there that someone else has to suffer for. Right now, the animation industry sets the price, so the individual animators take the hit. If the animators unionize, then they can push back on that. The market forces here are that artists cost money, but the production committees and studios don't want to pay for them, so they arrange the industry in such a way as to keep artists out of the picture.