I recently saw a friend share a job post on Twitter looking for animators to work on the new Studio Ghibli film. Intrigued, and ignoring the fact that I am not an animator and don’t speak Japanese, I clicked on the job post. Reading it through, it got me thinking about what life might be like working abroad in the animation sector.
There’s a fantastic new article on Kotaku from French animator Thomas Romain, who travelled with a colleague to Tokyo over 19 years ago to make a self-funded anime series. Romain is fairly frank about his experience as a foreign animator in a established landscape already famous around the world for its art and notoriously difficult to break into. Here are a few notable points from the article which really stand out for me.
- The drive and work ethic of the people in the industry – you could say working day and night to get an anime finished and ready to go for broadcast is admirable, but not consistently and to the detriment of your health, which appears to be a recurring theme in the industry. One worrying detail Romain reveals that a colleague died of a stroke, potentially from overwork, and that “life expectancy among animators is not very old”. I think there’s a fine line between being passionate about your work and being obsessive, however if that’s the working culture then it’s a difficult cycle to break. Doesn’t mean it’s right though! It also makes me wonder if it’s a male dominated industry – due to the overtly and quite frankly disturbing sexualisation of women in anime (that’s a topic for another post though) I would guess so, but wouldn’t like to assume.
- The friendliness of your colleagues – Romain talks about his experience of being truly welcomed into the Japanese anime community. As expected, he explains that making an effort to understand and integrate yourself into the culture is key, as is working long and hard hours, often unpaid, to get the work done. It seems as though your hard work does not go unnoticed though and you’ll get good work opportunities if you work hard (maybe too hard) enough.
- You don’t need to be an amazing illustrator to work in the anime industry – and like all of the visual arts industries, there’s probably a role for you to match your skills. Being an editor or production assistant sounds equally cool if you’re working on an anime.
The overwhelming sentiment is a total passion for the work: Romain says “I love drawing, I love 2D animation, and this is the best country to work in if you want to learn the craft. “There are so many brilliant animators, directors, studios, producing interesting content. I just wanted to be part of it, at any cost.” The bigger issue of a relentless work culture is addressed as an (unfair) reality, but the animator’s love for his job is evident.
To read more, check out the article here. Thomas Romain’s Twitter feed is super cool too – a great insight into Japanese life.
Image copyright: Flickr Creative Commons (K Anime by Danny Choo)
Animation celebration 