Anime Is Booming. So Why Are Animators Living in Poverty?
The workers who make the Japanese shows the world is binge-watching can earn as little as $200 a month. Many wonder how much longer they can endure it.
Tokyo’s Akihabara district, a center of anime culture. The industry’s boom has only widened the gap between profits and wages.Credit.Noriko Hayashi for The New York Times
Published Feb. 24, 2021Updated Feb. 25, 2021
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TOKYO Business has never been better for Japanese anime. And that is exactly why Tetsuya Akutsu is thinking about calling it quits.
When Mr. Akutsu became an animator eight years ago, the global anime market including TV shows, movies and merchandise was a little more than half of what it would be by 2019, when it hit an estimated $24 billion. The pandemic boom in video streaming has further accelerated demand at home and abroad, as people binge-watch kid-friendly fare like “Pokémon” and cyberpunk extravaganzas like “