Anime prioritises high production rates over quality. Anime looks largely samey. There's a few notable distinctions, like Attack on Titan, but the animators on

Anime prioritises high production rates over quality. Anime looks largely samey. There's a few notable distinctions, like Attack on Titan, but the animators on that are getting paid better then what's being quoted in this article. This article is quoting the pay scales for the animators working on single season anime that get cancelled halfway through that are based on an obscure manga that has only been read because it was published in a major magazine, but was never particularly popular and actually got cancelled a month before the anime came out. Yeah, there's a lot of great anime, and the stuff we get in the West is the stuff that's popular, with proper studios putting time and effort in. The people getting paid $5 a day aren't working on the major productions. Sure, the people that did Fairy Tale probably can get paid more, but the guys working on Visual Prison, yeah, they're not priority. Why don't they unionise? Because the people who would most benefit are afraid they might lose their jobs in the industry they want to work in. Is this backed by studies? Nope, but you tell that to someone facing down the prospect of losing their chance at their dream. And the 15% average wage increase from unionisation, let's be honest, isn't going to do anything. The issue here is the output. If anime is going to be more humane, it needs to cut how much random noise they produce. Look at Western animation. You get a handful of shows a year. Anime you get 3 years of content every 3 months. Workers are the ones that bear the brunt of that schedule.