CATDOLL: Senior animator: Japanese animation is on the verge of collapse due to excessive adherence to 2D

Japan's animation industry is now at the forefront of the world. They have achieved assembly-line animation production, and the quality is also very guaranteed. Although the number of Japanese animations has increased in the past two years, and many classic works have been born, the Japanese Animation Industry Association has warned in its annual report for two consecutive years that Japanese animation is facing overcapacity and bubble problems. There have also been cases of animation production companies going bankrupt, and many drawbacks in the animation industry have also emerged. Recently, a senior animator who has been engaged in animation production for more than 20 years bluntly stated: Japan's animation production process lacks efficiency and is rigidly 2D, and the animation production system is on the verge of collapse.

The animator said: "In recent years, I have strongly felt that the Japanese animation production industry (2D) is very inefficient, wasting a lot of manpower, material resources and time. The overall animation industry production has reached its limit. Among them, the biggest impact on production efficiency is freelance painters. They paint at home and exchange finished products and new tasks with the company by express delivery. Sometimes the express delivery fees for these freelance painters are more than the wages to be paid to them.

Since they are freelance artists and do not sign contracts with the company, they often fail to abide by the agreed delivery time and delay the submission of manuscripts. Of course, the requirements for the fineness of animation images have been improved in recent years, and the number of storyboards has increased, but the wages of original artists have not increased much, which has suppressed the work enthusiasm of these freelance artists. The repeated compression of the overall production time of animation has also made it impossible for many animations to follow the normal production process.

Some original artists are freelancers and get very little money. Not only animators, but other professions are also poorly paid and cannot guarantee a good life. I thought before that there could not be a better working environment? For this reason, I learned about overseas animation production companies. For example, I went to a Malaysian company a few years ago and found that their employees all worked together, and the atmosphere of the whole company seemed to be more relaxed.

At the same time, the mainstream of the whole world has become 3D animation, while in Japan, 2D is still the mainstream. This is a very special situation. In Japan, except for a small number of animation production companies like Toei, most other animation production companies have not been able to achieve complete digitalization of painting. The Japanese animation production industry, which is obsessed with complex and detailed pictures and still mainstream hand-drawn animation, is a special case in the world. Now the mainstream of world animation is 3D animation, while the mainstream of Japanese animation is still 2D animation. I think Japanese animation must strive to move forward and cannot stand still. "

Many Japanese netizens commented on this, saying: "In fact, they have already reached the edge of collapse, right?", "To be honest, if you can't even make a living from your job, why do you still do it?", "How many years will the industry last?". In fact, discussions about the end of the Japanese animation industry began a long time ago, but despite various things that have happened, the Japanese animation industry currently seems to have no major problems. Of course, with the development of the times and technology, the changes that the Japanese animation industry has to face are not small. In addition, the income and living issues of the producers are also receiving more and more attention, and reform is imperative. What do you think of this issue? Let's discuss it together.