If anyone has information on projects or causes that help animators please post them! Especially for countries like South Korea, China, the Philippines and Canada as these countries are often used for outsourcing but are also overwhelmed and underpaid but harder to find information for. Here are some ways to help American and Japanese Animators: Help Fund The Animator Dormitory for 2024: gogetfunding.com/animator-dorm-2024/ Stand With Animation: www.tagnegotiations2024.com/
Canadian animator here. It's been a rough year. I and all my coworker friends lost our jobs and were unemployed for over a year. We couldn't even find temp retail or fast food jobs since the Canadian job market is just straight in the toilet. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't had my spouse (and EI) keeping us afloat. I do have good news, which is that animation here is picking up again. Almost all of us have animation jobs again. Seems AI isn't working as well as they hoped, and Netflix and some other streaming services had some massive animated hits on their hands, which reminded them how important cartoons are to their catalogue. There's still room for improvement, but it's sure nice to be working again!
Hopefully AI (at least how it's utilized here) will be stay as nothing but a brief scare. We do still have animators in America and elsewhere to support however.
@@cheesydawg371As if. Without regulation and fundamental changes in how our economies function, AI will come back eventually and take hundreds of millions of jobs in short order, without any plan for the people who lose their livelihoods as a result. If we let AI stew in the background, it will get worse. The best way to handle an existential threat is to put it out in the open and not forget how dangerous it can be.
Funny thing is, Crunchroll started off as an illegal site to stream fansub anime for free. Fan translations is one thing since the fans were mostly translating without compensation, and only because there were not many overseas stories being translated into the language of their respective countries. Crunchyroll came along, took that work from the fansubers (not to mention the anime studios) and flooded their site with ads to make a profit. Then crunchy roll presented it as "business model" to somehow becoming partners with overseas studios. So this company not only stole the translations made by fans and anime companies to make a profit to begin with, but now they are actively trying to ruin the livelihoods of people that helped them legitimize their business model. Crunchyroll is a "tech company" first and foremost meaning they are no different than the ghouls at the AI companies. Not surprising.
Supporting funimation also made little sense. They mistranslated and added their own perspectives on shows since the 90s. And talking about unions, they tried to destroy the vice acting unions in the 90s by moving away from ocean studios with dragon ball. Since then, most dubs are non unionized. Before the switch most if not all dubs were union.
As usual, a very concise recitation of what continues to be a prescient topic that continues to affect many different industries (the advent of unchecked AI, corporate greed, et cetera). While it is disheartening to see how grim things are getting for the creatives who bring us the anime and manga that we love (clearly wouldn't be consuming anime content on youtube otherwise), I do like your message at the end about not feeling totally helpless. Unfortunately, history has shown that it takes a long time for labor movements to make any headway, and I do think the fact that anime has become so popular in the US gives us some leverage over changing things. Of course, we have to start in our own backyard with wrangling crunchyroll, which, admittedly, is a monumental undertaking. CR is doing everything it can to race to the bottom including its strong antiunion bend for animators, voice actors, and even other staff (for example, getting rid of their commenting so they don't have to employ moderators). Would really love it if they didn't have such a monopoly over content distribution in the US. Thank you for shouting out The Anime Dormitory! I'm definitely going to check out their work.
As a prior translator and current translation project manager and linguist, I am so disgusted at Crunchy Roll and other anime production companies for underpaying their translators, sub-titlers, and localizers. Your translators are truly the life blood of bringing anime and manga to an international audience. Literary translation is an art and incredibly difficult skill as you have to capture culture elements and also try to replicate the style and tone of the original writer(s). It speaks volumes about how translators are viewed, when large companies believe they can cut corners and turn to machine translation of literary text to cut costs and time.
Finally someone acknowledging the complicated. Even if we have fun western animated shows coming out or animated movies it's complicated. It's few and far between now since there is the sad case of AI, the poor working conditions, and how bad the general board believes that by using AI as animation as the next big thing there's no need for workers. There is also the case of streaming services and the case of removing series and there's n9 case for any safety on claiming art. Like how HBO Max removed most of its cartoon network channels. (At least we have Hulu) And at least we have Indie Animation such as Helluva Boss or TADC it's still hard trying to make animation these days. And on the other hand anime is booming and I feel while it's exciting I feel it's the biggest weakness. The biggest issue is that the workers never fight. Say what you will on the state of the western animation industry at least those workers are fighting rather than backing down. But this is Japan and their workers have to deal with many frustrations such as the case with the Final Season of AOT or the state of JJK Season 2. These workers cannot even quit because Japan has a policy where it doesn't allow it. And some of anime services such as Crunchyroll and other streaming services shows how kind of dark it is. As a result I feel bad for all creators and I respect both cartoons and anime. I feel bad for these workers and I hope there some better alternative because I respect animation and I'm terrified on what's to come.
As a blue lock fan, I’m currently extremely disappointed by the animation quality of season two so far; however, my disappointment is not at all directed to the animators, but instead to the execs, investors, and people in power who are not hiring more people to work on this project and not giving the animators the time they need to properly work on this project (while also getting the rest they need)
As someone who got a degree with animation and game design. It makes sense all these problems, it takes a lot of work and of course the companies don’t want to pay overtime nor could they afford without bigger budgets so corners be cut. It’s a challenge to get the right model because animators will work hard to get stuff done, got that perfectionist bug, cus the love is in the creation so they will run overtime and companies can exploit the passion but then don’t want to actually pay them . Union stuff is a problem as well as committees though more animations have moved into a seasonal approach for animations which I think will be the way forward. AI is a threat because as we see with how stingy companies are to workers we know they care not about quality and so AI would be used even if it had errors. What it depends is how those are received. Likely we will end up with a balkanised independent animation and then a machine running mainstream animation studios that people get some experience in and drop out and just this sort of rotation of talent. If anything isn’t changed, AI when it reaches a point of competency will get picked up over real people and if audiences don’t reject it they will just move on with it and animators will be independent and maybe hired for big projects
Wish I could find it again but there was a channel that put out a video about the state of Japanese animation and named a studio that just put out an anime that was allegedly better pay and instead of finishing the anime on a weekly schedule was complete before broadcast but I can’t find it! The logo was fairly colorful and had a rainbow I think
Kyoto animation works like that. Unfortunately they had a devastating setback when an arsonist burned their studio down, but they've been steadily rebuilding themselves.
Just wanted to say how much I always appreciate your analysis in your videos- even on a topic that I've seen so many folks give takes on (both on TH-cam and other social media platforms), your perspective is always so well thought-out and well articulated. Your research for this video in particular is fantastic!
Thank you for talking about this, very informative and I hope things get better going forward for animators. Keep up the great work and content because it's amazing :)
That mainly applies to the localisation companies like crunchyroll treating customers like shit. Should also support animation unions and other workers like translators trying to unionise so that they all get a better wage for making all the shows we watch and us being able to enjoy them in our native language
Production Committees are Largely to Blame for the reason why the animators and the actual artists aren’t getting compensation on their work. Production Committees originally started as way as I heard apparently to help the studio get independent with series production, but then the big companies game in and turned it into a more money for them scheme.
Great Analysis 👏🏽 Love your channel by the way! The Animation, film, and creative industry just isn't the same anymore 😞 I rather watch someone's ACTUAL hand drawn work than putting CGI while others are stealing people's art because of it. On top of that their not getting paid for it!! I pray for people who has hope in the Animation, film, or creative industry as a whole. Remember your Art brings Life to the world!! 🙏🏽🌱
With those hours, I don't understand why they don't let their workers work from home. As someone who is in the industry and works from home, it is a godsend if you need to work ot. I see however, that the working industries at least in Canada are all suffering and people are all having a hard time getting work, not just animation, and a lot of it has to do with AI.
I love this video and I greatly appreciate your work and time to make this, but I'm dearly sorry to say we should never say "when AI takes over". AI is dangerous and without sanctions from these greedy corporations it will ruin our humanity. We should never allow AI to take over. Not in live action film, photography, graphic design, art, print, writing, and anime! For any other scientific fields like engineering or the medical field, I get it but with proper sanctions. People are way too relaxed- it's only the beginning, a few decades from now we won't have control. People be careful and stay vigilant. Art is a human creation and experience. Let people create!
This sounds crazy but I haven't watched a full series of anime since the 2010s. I think subconsciously I knew the mass production was schetch. I have stayed away from most popular hyped series including Attack on Titan. It all doesn't feel the same as when I was a child. Or maybe I'm getting old idk.
To be fair, I've been watching quite a bit of old Anime myself. I haven't really been up to date with all the new Anime coming out . I have my eyes on some new Anime like Orb on the movements of the earth. I plan on watching it once I finish Ashita No Joe .
Love the video, even if it’s depressing. One small thing, who gives a shit about using North Korean animators? The sanctions put on them were evil anyway?
I've been mostly disappointed in the most recent season of anime, especially the writing. It feels like everyone is just looking up random tropes and stuffing them into the story for reasons? I've already dropped a couple shows because they didn't grab, and another couple because they went full on cliché and I couldn't deal with it. One more is tottering on the edge, feeling more like a recap than a proper episode. That last one, the animation is terrible, like the animators were given a single glance at the character sheets and had to work from that. For all I know that's exactly what happened.
Orb on the movements of the earth looks really good and promising. I haven't watched it yet because I've been marathoning old Anime lately. But I do plan on watching it soon when I get the chance . I just finished season 1 of Ashita No Joe from 1970-1971 and I'm currently watching season 2 of Ashita No Joe from 1980-1981.
So my idea is to combine the animatic process with animations to lighten the load on the artists. Still images should be utilized more for scenes that are low energy or dry conversations and more emphasis can be applied to action and high emotional scenes to really capitalize on the height of the moment in the story and alleviate the workload simultaneously. I call it animatication but that's my contribution.
The beauty of this animation style will be most scene in the smooth transitions between still images to fully animated movements. Like seeing a painting come to life is my vision.
I know that people think they're helping animators by demonizing AI, but the fact is AI will become more and more ingrained in how we animate going forward. And by conflating AI with actual abuse in the industry only serves to make the real abuse come off as "just part of the system". Abuse isn't necessary! Abuse isn't beneficial! Let's continue to use AI to help artists make more things better and faster and let's try focusing on getting rid of all the other problems the host addresses in this video!
ai will but we should fight for it to be more ethical on all sides. to the animators and to the many it stole from to create its database that it regurgitates from. i see ai being used as a tool, but with how its being treated rn... ugh. companies stop trying to replace their human artists challenge!! use ai as a tool to streamline the processes of their human artists challenge!! i hope animators arent just uprooted and replaced. i hope they get actually paid.
If anyone has information on projects or causes that help animators please post them! Especially for countries like South Korea, China, the Philippines and Canada as these countries are often used for outsourcing but are also overwhelmed and underpaid but harder to find information for.
Here are some ways to help American and Japanese Animators:
Help Fund The Animator Dormitory for 2024:
gogetfunding.com/animator-dorm-2024/
Stand With Animation:
www.tagnegotiations2024.com/
thank you for sharing resources!
Canadian animator here. It's been a rough year. I and all my coworker friends lost our jobs and were unemployed for over a year. We couldn't even find temp retail or fast food jobs since the Canadian job market is just straight in the toilet. I don't know where I'd be if I hadn't had my spouse (and EI) keeping us afloat. I do have good news, which is that animation here is picking up again. Almost all of us have animation jobs again. Seems AI isn't working as well as they hoped, and Netflix and some other streaming services had some massive animated hits on their hands, which reminded them how important cartoons are to their catalogue. There's still room for improvement, but it's sure nice to be working again!
Hopefully AI (at least how it's utilized here) will be stay as nothing but a brief scare. We do still have animators in America and elsewhere to support however.
God bless ya and Jesus loves ya man, I hope y'all find a safe way out of this hard season!
@@cheesydawg371As if. Without regulation and fundamental changes in how our economies function, AI will come back eventually and take hundreds of millions of jobs in short order, without any plan for the people who lose their livelihoods as a result. If we let AI stew in the background, it will get worse. The best way to handle an existential threat is to put it out in the open and not forget how dangerous it can be.
@@doodlegame8704 good point. I am also an advocate of Communist uprising.
I’m glad to hear you’re doing better and have work, thanks for sharing your experience!
Funny thing is, Crunchroll started off as an illegal site to stream fansub anime for free. Fan translations is one thing since the fans were mostly translating without compensation, and only because there were not many overseas stories being translated into the language of their respective countries. Crunchyroll came along, took that work from the fansubers (not to mention the anime studios) and flooded their site with ads to make a profit. Then crunchy roll presented it as "business model" to somehow becoming partners with overseas studios.
So this company not only stole the translations made by fans and anime companies to make a profit to begin with, but now they are actively trying to ruin the livelihoods of people that helped them legitimize their business model. Crunchyroll is a "tech company" first and foremost meaning they are no different than the ghouls at the AI companies. Not surprising.
Supporting funimation also made little sense. They mistranslated and added their own perspectives on shows since the 90s. And talking about unions, they tried to destroy the vice acting unions in the 90s by moving away from ocean studios with dragon ball. Since then, most dubs are non unionized. Before the switch most if not all dubs were union.
if you want to help the anime industry, please support the animation dormitory’s current 2024 campaign! They really need it right now!
Animation dormitory?
Came here to say this!
This year has been absolute garbage for the industry, so thank you for highlighting the issues that we've been facing ❤
As usual, a very concise recitation of what continues to be a prescient topic that continues to affect many different industries (the advent of unchecked AI, corporate greed, et cetera). While it is disheartening to see how grim things are getting for the creatives who bring us the anime and manga that we love (clearly wouldn't be consuming anime content on youtube otherwise), I do like your message at the end about not feeling totally helpless. Unfortunately, history has shown that it takes a long time for labor movements to make any headway, and I do think the fact that anime has become so popular in the US gives us some leverage over changing things. Of course, we have to start in our own backyard with wrangling crunchyroll, which, admittedly, is a monumental undertaking. CR is doing everything it can to race to the bottom including its strong antiunion bend for animators, voice actors, and even other staff (for example, getting rid of their commenting so they don't have to employ moderators). Would really love it if they didn't have such a monopoly over content distribution in the US.
Thank you for shouting out The Anime Dormitory! I'm definitely going to check out their work.
As a prior translator and current translation project manager and linguist, I am so disgusted at Crunchy Roll and other anime production companies for underpaying their translators, sub-titlers, and localizers. Your translators are truly the life blood of bringing anime and manga to an international audience. Literary translation is an art and incredibly difficult skill as you have to capture culture elements and also try to replicate the style and tone of the original writer(s). It speaks volumes about how translators are viewed, when large companies believe they can cut corners and turn to machine translation of literary text to cut costs and time.
Finally someone acknowledging the complicated. Even if we have fun western animated shows coming out or animated movies it's complicated. It's few and far between now since there is the sad case of AI, the poor working conditions, and how bad the general board believes that by using AI as animation as the next big thing there's no need for workers. There is also the case of streaming services and the case of removing series and there's n9 case for any safety on claiming art. Like how HBO Max removed most of its cartoon network channels. (At least we have Hulu) And at least we have Indie Animation such as Helluva Boss or TADC it's still hard trying to make animation these days.
And on the other hand anime is booming and I feel while it's exciting I feel it's the biggest weakness. The biggest issue is that the workers never fight. Say what you will on the state of the western animation industry at least those workers are fighting rather than backing down. But this is Japan and their workers have to deal with many frustrations such as the case with the Final Season of AOT or the state of JJK Season 2. These workers cannot even quit because Japan has a policy where it doesn't allow it. And some of anime services such as Crunchyroll and other streaming services shows how kind of dark it is. As a result I feel bad for all creators and I respect both cartoons and anime. I feel bad for these workers and I hope there some better alternative because I respect animation and I'm terrified on what's to come.
I want to live in the timeline where Infinity Train got to season 8 💔
As a blue lock fan, I’m currently extremely disappointed by the animation quality of season two so far; however, my disappointment is not at all directed to the animators, but instead to the execs, investors, and people in power who are not hiring more people to work on this project and not giving the animators the time they need to properly work on this project (while also getting the rest they need)
Ngl this is a weird timeline lol crunchyroll used to be the under dog now they doing crazy stuff
They're LITERALLY a piracy site 😂😂😂
As someone who got a degree with animation and game design. It makes sense all these problems, it takes a lot of work and of course the companies don’t want to pay overtime nor could they afford without bigger budgets so corners be cut. It’s a challenge to get the right model because animators will work hard to get stuff done, got that perfectionist bug, cus the love is in the creation so they will run overtime and companies can exploit the passion but then don’t want to actually pay them .
Union stuff is a problem as well as committees though more animations have moved into a seasonal approach for animations which I think will be the way forward.
AI is a threat because as we see with how stingy companies are to workers we know they care not about quality and so AI would be used even if it had errors. What it depends is how those are received.
Likely we will end up with a balkanised independent animation and then a machine running mainstream animation studios that people get some experience in and drop out and just this sort of rotation of talent. If anything isn’t changed, AI when it reaches a point of competency will get picked up over real people and if audiences don’t reject it they will just move on with it and animators will be independent and maybe hired for big projects
Wish I could find it again but there was a channel that put out a video about the state of Japanese animation and named a studio that just put out an anime that was allegedly better pay and instead of finishing the anime on a weekly schedule was complete before broadcast but I can’t find it! The logo was fairly colorful and had a rainbow I think
Kyoto animation works like that. Unfortunately they had a devastating setback when an arsonist burned their studio down, but they've been steadily rebuilding themselves.
Ghibli, I heard, also have proper employment standards similar to Kyoto animation.
Just wanted to say how much I always appreciate your analysis in your videos- even on a topic that I've seen so many folks give takes on (both on TH-cam and other social media platforms), your perspective is always so well thought-out and well articulated. Your research for this video in particular is fantastic!
Thank you for watching and I’m glad to provide some insight on this topic, it’s really important to me
Thank you for talking about this, very informative and I hope things get better going forward for animators. Keep up the great work and content because it's amazing :)
Sometimes we just have to P.U.S.H. Pirate Until Something Happens
That mainly applies to the localisation companies like crunchyroll treating customers like shit. Should also support animation unions and other workers like translators trying to unionise so that they all get a better wage for making all the shows we watch and us being able to enjoy them in our native language
Just discovered your channel, subscribed 😀
Production Committees are Largely to Blame for the reason why the animators and the actual artists aren’t getting compensation on their work. Production Committees originally started as way as I heard apparently to help the studio get independent with series production, but then the big companies game in and turned it into a more money for them scheme.
Capitalism go Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
uncomfortable conversations to be had. What more will it corrupt
@@LVC85costa everything.
Great Analysis 👏🏽 Love your channel by the way! The Animation, film, and creative industry just isn't the same anymore 😞 I rather watch someone's ACTUAL hand drawn work than putting CGI while others are stealing people's art because of it. On top of that their not getting paid for it!! I pray for people who has hope in the Animation, film, or creative industry as a whole. Remember your Art brings Life to the world!! 🙏🏽🌱
Thank you for saying the quiet parts
"if ai" not "when ai"
With those hours, I don't understand why they don't let their workers work from home. As someone who is in the industry and works from home, it is a godsend if you need to work ot.
I see however, that the working industries at least in Canada are all suffering and people are all having a hard time getting work, not just animation, and a lot of it has to do with AI.
Great work, thank you ❤❤
I love this video and I greatly appreciate your work and time to make this, but I'm dearly sorry to say we should never say "when AI takes over". AI is dangerous and without sanctions from these greedy corporations it will ruin our humanity. We should never allow AI to take over. Not in live action film, photography, graphic design, art, print, writing, and anime! For any other scientific fields like engineering or the medical field, I get it but with proper sanctions. People are way too relaxed- it's only the beginning, a few decades from now we won't have control. People be careful and stay vigilant. Art is a human creation and experience. Let people create!
Another way we could support animators is to get actual jeff bezos to just pay all the animators more!
Excellent video on the professional state of the animation industry.
This sounds crazy but I haven't watched a full series of anime since the 2010s. I think subconsciously I knew the mass production was schetch. I have stayed away from most popular hyped series including Attack on Titan. It all doesn't feel the same as when I was a child. Or maybe I'm getting old idk.
To be fair, I've been watching quite a bit of old Anime myself. I haven't really been up to date with all the new Anime coming out . I have my eyes on some new Anime like Orb on the movements of the earth. I plan on watching it once I finish Ashita No Joe .
Crunchy roll also merged with rightstuf fairly recently which is unfortunate !
Sadly the money is the only way this stops I just don't know if that's a boycott or a full on collapse
super important video! good work
AI subtitling almost ruined the Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons, which is a solid slice of life, if you can get past the botchery of that first episode..
Love the video, even if it’s depressing. One small thing, who gives a shit about using North Korean animators? The sanctions put on them were evil anyway?
^^ i hope north korean animators are paid properly
For anyone interested in a summary of the video: "it's the fault of Capitalism's natural course"
The disease known as Capitalism
I've been mostly disappointed in the most recent season of anime, especially the writing. It feels like everyone is just looking up random tropes and stuffing them into the story for reasons? I've already dropped a couple shows because they didn't grab, and another couple because they went full on cliché and I couldn't deal with it. One more is tottering on the edge, feeling more like a recap than a proper episode. That last one, the animation is terrible, like the animators were given a single glance at the character sheets and had to work from that. For all I know that's exactly what happened.
Orb on the movements of the earth looks really good and promising. I haven't watched it yet because I've been marathoning old Anime lately. But I do plan on watching it soon when I get the chance . I just finished season 1 of Ashita No Joe from 1970-1971 and I'm currently watching season 2 of Ashita No Joe from 1980-1981.
Interesting video today 😢
Dahlia deserved so much better :((
So my idea is to combine the animatic process with animations to lighten the load on the artists. Still images should be utilized more for scenes that are low energy or dry conversations and more emphasis can be applied to action and high emotional scenes to really capitalize on the height of the moment in the story and alleviate the workload simultaneously. I call it animatication but that's my contribution.
The beauty of this animation style will be most scene in the smooth transitions between still images to fully animated movements. Like seeing a painting come to life is my vision.
Please check your mic. It's getting garbled at times. May its gain is low?
AImazing
I know that people think they're helping animators by demonizing AI, but the fact is AI will become more and more ingrained in how we animate going forward. And by conflating AI with actual abuse in the industry only serves to make the real abuse come off as "just part of the system". Abuse isn't necessary! Abuse isn't beneficial! Let's continue to use AI to help artists make more things better and faster and let's try focusing on getting rid of all the other problems the host addresses in this video!
ai will but we should fight for it to be more ethical on all sides. to the animators and to the many it stole from to create its database that it regurgitates from. i see ai being used as a tool, but with how its being treated rn... ugh. companies stop trying to replace their human artists challenge!! use ai as a tool to streamline the processes of their human artists challenge!!
i hope animators arent just uprooted and replaced. i hope they get actually paid.
At least Arcane will compensate for the travesties 😊