[Image via Uemachi]
If it wasn’t enough that working in the anime industry is hard, the pay can also be shockingly low.
Taiki Nishimura has been making anime for the past twenty years. But as he recently revealed on Twitter (via ANN), he gets around a thousand bucks per month for each show he works on.
According to Nishimura, he needs between 150,000 yen ($1797) to 200,000 yen ($2397) per month to make ends meet. So while he’d prefer to work on one anime at a time, he doubles up. Each of these anime takes two months to finish, with a lump sum of 230,000 yen for that period ($2756). That works out to 115,000 yen ($1378) per month per show for a combined monthly income of 250,000 yen ($2996).
Keep in mind that this is for a 20-year vet who has directed episodes of Naruto, Mobile Suit Gundam Seed Destiny and School Rumble.
As Otaku Magazine points out, Nishimura complained about his situation in late April, saying last year he made 1,600,000 yen ($19,177) from working in anime. His current situation, he said, is making him want to quit the business.
ANN notes that the average reported anime industry salary is 3.3283 million yen (about $39,895) annually. According to Nishimura, the most he’s ever made from anime is 3,000,000 yen ($35,960) a year.
Comments
5 responses to “TV Anime Veteran Shares His Depressing Salary ”
it would be interesting to compare it with the likes of Akira Toriyama, Kishimoto, Oda and Kubo with their large scale creations that span world wide popularity.
Without knowing how their cost of living compares to ours it’s hard to draw any comparison in terms I can understand.
To me those wages sound more like entry level rather than a 20 year veteran but that’s in terms of the Australian economy.
The cost of living there is pretty comparable to living in Sydney CBD :/
You have a valid point but this is Japan. Cost of living is pretty darn high!
This is why I work in a sell-out government job for $$$ instead of following my dreams to become a comic book artist.
He still has a legacy though. That’s something.
Depressing, but not surprising. Apparently artists and musicians are supposed to give away everything they do for free these days. Sure as hell no-one actually seems to want to pay them for their art that we claim to love so much.
It’s a bit supply and demand. If there are lots of people who can do you job the wage the job will.pay is less, they don’t need to offer attractive wages to get the right employee.