I have been reading some article and watching some videos about the anime industry and I found some really interesting information. Perhaps I should call it disturbing. This article and video was the first one that got my attention.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703819904574551834260925714

This Wall Street Journal video talks about the anime culture and wages of people in the industry. The focus is on the interviews of a couple of artist who are called in-between artist. Generally, the article is about these artist making $1,000 a month working well over 40 hours a week.

Ok, so this was dated in 2009. That was 10 years ago. So, I went to look for something more current.

https://www.vox.com/culture/2019/7/2/20677237/anime-industry-japan-artists-pay-labor-abuse-neon-genesis-evangelion-netflix

Then I found this article dated 2019. A bit more current. But, they are talking about the same problem. This is 10 years later!

So, what is an in-between artist? That is a good question. They are many different people needed to create an anime. The director, producer, story boarder, key animators and then the in-between artist. This is what most of the art of an anime show is. The key animators create the main actions of a character or key frames. Then the in-between artist fill in the rest of the art to make the show look like how they want it. To make a show look smooth 12 images per second are needed in a show. There can be more or less depending on what the director wants or the action of a character.

Now, lets look at this next article written in 2016. Fairly current.

https://kotaku.com/average-anime-industry-salaries-get-depressing-1774852881

This article does paint a better picture. As the director and producer are considered more important, they might get a higher wage. However, if you look at the average age of an in-between artist, it is listed as 24 years old.

Here in Seattle, if I was making $11,000 a year or $850 a month with four days off working 11 hours a day, I would go crazy.

https://www.seattlepi.com/seattlenews/article/Seattle-s-minimum-wage-is-going-up-again-in-14539135.php

Here is a local article written in 2019 that puts wage into perspective.

I love anime and I am very grateful for all the contributors who make the shows I love. There is a problem and I hope that we are able to experience anime for a long time to come. I don’t know what the solution is but I can only hope that a fix will be found sooner then later.