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The thoughts, reviews and analysis of Comedy, Romance, Drama and Slice of Life Anime of a College Student

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topical issues

Impact of Covid-19 on Japanese Animation Studios and the Need to Embrace Digital and Telework

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Artist:stick jitb

Believe it or not, I have covered the impacts of the Anime Industry due to Covid-19. However, we still didn’t know the full impact back then, until now. This just didn’t happen overnight. Animation studios faced problems such as poor working conditions, a packed production schedule and noticeable delays in 2019.

As expected, the coronavirus situation made the whole thing worse. Sure, a handful of titles suffered minor delays. Eventually, the coronavirus situation worsened with more than forty titles facing delays.  As a result, studios had no choice but to delay productions. Eventually Japan declared a state of emergency on April 16, weeks after delaying the Olympics. This does not come at a surprise since the workplace at these studios clamped. As a result, this makes social distancing efforts nearly impossible. With that, I want to focus on some thoughts on the whole situation.
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When A Fairy Tale Becomes a Nightmare – Analyzing the Production Failures of Märchen Mädchen

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Back in 2015, I analyzed production issues in regards to Anime. It seems that every year, production issue are becoming more apparent. It’s saddening that a lack of production values can hold a show back regardless of how good or interesting the story and characters are. To me, no adaptation deserves the poor treatment that this show received. This adaptation is Märchen Mädchen.
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All Work and No Pay – Part II – Animator’s Pay and Working Conditions Keeps Getting Worse

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Artist: ハジメカナメ

Back in 2015, I covered and analyzed the poor wages and working conditions animators face. It’s a known fact that animators are paid very little, they work long hours, and receive little free time. Since then, I wonder how things progressed since then. Have they improved?
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All Work and No Pay – Being a Japanese Animator is Tough

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Just little over five years ago, I have done some research on how the Anime industry works and of course, I have only covered the surface. Shirobako, which started airing back in October of last year. Not only it reveals how anime is produced, but also blew open some of the internal issues in the industry, especially in regards to the animation studios.

With that, I will be focusing on animator’s wages, working conditions and its implications on the industry as a whole. Also, what steps should the industry take to deal with these issues?
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Production Values and Anime – Is “Let’s Fix it in the Blu-ray Release” a Bad Excuse for Lack of Quality?

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Artist: itou
Artist: itou

Animation quality is one of the aspects of Anime that viewers tend to judge first hand when determining how good the production values are for a show. The sad fact is that animation mistakes regardless of the studio are bound to happen. Animation studios work on a very tight schedule and because of that, they might not have enough time to check every key frame before having to give the finished episode to the station to air. As a result, these errors usually get fixed later on, namely for the Blu-ray/DVD release.

To me, I think it is always in the best interest for the animation studio to make them not too noticeable and then fix it while enhancing some scenes in the final release. However, what implications will arise if studios decide to take advantage of this fact and air a half-finished product to entice people to buy the physical releases? Let’s find out.
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