How The Anime Industry Hurts Its Animators: The Story of Yoshifumi Kondo
Today while sitting in my favorite pie shop having lunch the song Country Roads came on and it made me think of my favorite Studio Ghibli movie Whisper of the Heart. The film was directed by Yoshifumi Kondo. Most people associate Ghibli with Miyazaki but there have been many other directors at Ghibli such as the late Isao Takahata, Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Goro Miyazaki, and the late Yoshifumi Kondo. Kondo had only directed 4 films and this one was his best up to that date and he was slated to be Miyazaki’s successor.
Whisper of the Heart is one of Studio Ghibli’s great underrated classics. It was the highest-grossing film of 1995 in Japan. The story explores many different themes including love and what it is like to be a creative. It is based on a manga of the same name by Aoi Hiragi. The story follows a thirteen-year-old girl named Shizuku Tsukishima who loves to read fairytales. Through her reading, she meets a young boy named Seiji Amasawa and his grandfather Mr. Nishi. They encourage her to pursue her talent for writing. Shizuku finds her inspiration in a small cat figurine in Mr. Nishi’s antique shop called Baron Humbert Von Gikkingen (aka the Baron).
Kondo was a great animator and heading towards a career as the one who would take over as top director at Ghibli. According to his IMDB page, Kondo worked in the industry from 1970 up until the release of Princess Mononoke in 1997. Many times he took on multiple projects per year. Many times he would take up more than one job on one project. Kondo died in January 1998 at the age of 47 from an aneurysm. The doctor said it was due to Karoshi. Karoshi is a Japanese word and it means death from being overworked.
While Miyazaki did take a personal hit losing a longtime colleague and friend. Kondo was someone whom Miyazaki referred to as his right arm. Meaning that Kondo was not only very talented but very dependable and consistent in his work. He was also on top of that he was very creative. His work on Little Nemo is an example of his creativity. But Ghibli went about business as usual. They sped up production and made My Neighbor the Yamadas, The Cat Returns, and Spirited Away all within 4 years after Kondo’s death.
Kondo’s career in the anime industry. While most people last maybe a decade. He lasted three decades. Most animators in the anime industry in Japan either leave from burnout or die from karoshi after about 3 years.
Working on a Ghibli project is tough. Ghibli expects a high level of quality. Ghibli does not use scripts but instead, they use storyboards. The storyboards by Miyazaki are not finished until a year into production when animation is already happening. For Kondo he would have been working in the dark in regards to the story, not knowing how it will end and his career at Ghibli was on the line. Then right after Whisper of the Heart was a success, Kondo jumps into Princess Mononoke with hardly a break to work as an animator.
The anime industry is really messed up. The business made 2.51 trillion yen in 2019 which equals up to $17.5 billion domestically. Internationally anime made 74 billion yen which equals up to $515,740,558.00. In America, an animator makes $65–75,000 per year. In Japan, they can barely scrape by. Top animators like Kondo would be making $1400 — $3800 per month. A low-rung, entry-level animator would be making as low as $200 a month. Some entry-level make $12,000 per year. Many studios can get away with this because they hire freelance animators and pay them a piece rate. Studio Ghibli used to do this in the 80s until after Kiki’s Delivery Service came out and they released it was not a sustainable business model. They realized to get that quality and consistent animation they needed to employ their animators and train them.
The industry has done little to improve conditions for animators. It has gotten worse. Anime is booming on streaming services. Many shows like Pokemon release 52 episodes per season. Burnout and Karoshi are very common in the industry. Most animators are in their 20s and leave in their early 30s or die. The stories of these animators are reflected in Shizuku’s time spent writing her story. Shizuku spends hours each day hunched over her desk each day, eating only what she has in her desk and sometimes suffering from burnout or depression herself. Shizuku works so hard on her story that she neglects her family and school. Shizuku puts herself down for not being as accomplished of a writer as Seiji is a violin maker.
There are still things that we can do. I am not saying to give up anime or cancel anime. Canceling anime would just further hurt the animators. The best we can do to help is to support the studios that do hire salaried staff. Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata were once animators too and they fought for animators rights. Studio Ghibli hires salaried staff. Miyazaki’s film The Wind Rises had over 100 employees working on the project. At the time there were 400 people working for the studio. Other directors are following the example of Miyazaki and Takahata and setting up their own studios. Hiromasa Yonebayashi is the founder of Studio Ponoc and a former-Ghibli director. Mamoru Hosada started Studio Chizu after he had worked for many years on Digimon and Sailor Moon. There is also Kyoto Animation. Kyoto Animation sounds really amazing and I love Ghibli and Studio Chizu so I think that I can give them all my support.
As Mr. Nishi said in the film Whisper of the Heart “It's a special kind of rock called a geode. Hold it close to your eye and look inside. That’s right like that. Those crystals are called beryl. There are pieces of raw emerald deep inside them. But they need to be cut and polished first. When you first become an artist, you are like that rock. You’re in a raw natural state with hidden gems inside. You have to dig down deep and find the emeralds tucked away inside you. And that’s just the beginning. Once you’ve found your gems, you have to polish them. It takes a lot of handwork. Oh and here’s the tricky part: look at the crack in the geode. You see that big green crystal there? You could spend years polishing that and it wouldn’t be worth much at all. The smaller crystals are much more valuable. And there may be some even deeper inside that we can’t see which are even more precious. (Miyazaki, 1997). Maybe some animators in Japan are dying or burning out before they had been given the opportunity to show what they could really do. Maybe one of those animators could have been the next Miyazaki or Takahata if they had better working conditions, much better pay, and proper training. Kondo would have achieved great things as a director had he lived and he probably would have gone on to be one of the greats next to Miyazaki and Takahata.
Stevem on Youtube did an excellent video on the subject of Yoshifumi Kondo and Kuroshi. I highly suggest checking out this video along with his other video.
