Article on potential collapse of the anime industry.

[Femto]

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 304f1.html

It has a number of very interesting tidbits of information, like the fact that Japan outsources about 90% of their animation work to China or the Philippines and how Japanese anime has "maxed out as an export industry" due to fansubs and illegal downloads.

All you fags should read this.

This fad is coming to an end.

Thank god.

[War Machine]

This quote is genius:

"I think we need to think, philosophically, about what our users really want."

That's how all industries should be run. Forget demographics, Plato has the answer!

[Buzkashi]

As long as hentai is still around...

[The Herald]

I agree that this is good in the sense that like in the nineties we have been currently subject to a lot of shitty animes, and those are just those produced by funimation and ocean, to name a few (I'm one of those good consumers that usually buys their anime or watches it on TV). Just imagine how much of the shit it filtered out by the dubbing companies. This is both a good and a bad thing, in that animation will be held to a higher standard, both in production and story telling. Hell, this recession may even bring about a new golden age where we will see more studios than just Ghibli making feature length films instead of the trendy 25 or 14 episode series'. But this is also bad because this article details the economic downturn and as a student myself in the fine arts it's pretty harrowing to think about it. But it also is a bit of a slap in the face that only the best will survive in any industry, and the mediocre will just be that, mediocre. That's how Ford and the like survived the dirty 30s.

[Eldo]

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ ... 304f1.html

It has a number of very interesting tidbits of information, like the fact that Japan outsources about 90% of their animation work to China or the Philippines and how Japanese anime has "maxed out as an export industry" due to fansubs and illegal downloads.

All you fags should read this.

This fad is coming to an end.

Thank god.

I've only really skimmed through it, since I personally don't have much time and I don't really like reading essays or articles on anime. Since the animation wasn't spectacular to begin with, I can't honestly say that I care that Japan outsource their animation work to other countries. Don't Americans outsource it to Koreans with their cartoons? However, some of the animation that Koreans do are actually half decent but can range from bad. Also to note, the future of many industries are in doubt as well, not only limited to anime. US comics, for example, list their worries as well, due to BT and aging/aged readers. However, I know this article would affect you and has been brought to your attention, Femto, because of your field. What are your thoughts on this? Is the anime industry current situation similar (not the fansubbing or maxed out as an export industry crap) to American cartoons? Can you actually compare conditions with the animation graduate mentioned in the article? Also, I wished they compared (in terms of lifestyle and crap) Ide's rookie salary with the animation graduate mentioned in the beginning of the article, because 70000 yen back then is different from 80000 yen now.