Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs called in Netflix to testify on fair compensation in today’s digital age, with Netflix pointing out the brutal hours Japanese animators pull, way above national averages and the constant outsourcing to foreign studios to hit deadlines and slash labor costs.
Ironically, Netflix—the same company that licenses beloved Japanese series only to mangle them with censorship or produce cringe-worthy live-action adaptations featuring race-swapped characters, claims it’s working to improve these conditions.
This includes funding historically revisionist animated projects like Yasuke, which leans into the fictionalized samurai trope, much like Ubisoft’s approach with Assassin’s Creed Shadows, a strategy that has now led them to the brink of bankruptcy due to their commitment to woke DEI principles.
They say they’re paying fair prices for anime licenses and ensuring those payments trickle down, reaching not just the main studios but also subcontractors and freelancers.
Despite the fact that animator Ippei Ichii previously took to Twitter in 2021 to speak out about financial issues, revealing that animators were being offered rock-bottom rates for working on a Netflix anime produced at MAPPA, the production studio of Yasuke offering around 3,800 yen per cut while the average far exceeded such figures.
Yet transparency in the anime production chain is a mess. Just this year, it came out that a North Korean studio sanctioned by the UN was involved in making Dahlia in Bloom. Then there’s the uproar over an alleged minor working on Isekai Onsen Paradise, which hasn’t been confirmed but has stirred up major controversy.
Anime’s skyrocketing popularity worldwide has been a goldmine for companies like KADOKAWA. Even so, a loud chunk of so-called Western “fans” love to hate on any anime genre that isn’t battle shounen, raising a stink about so-called “problematic” themes like fanservice, nudity, or loli characters (which they, of course, equate to real-life kids).
Meanwhile, as Netflix and Crunchyroll snap up licenses and sanitize content for Western audiences, Japan’s anime output has exploded. More shows per season means more pressure on studios, yet without nearly enough growth to handle the workload.
Netflix notes that animators are clocking between 198 and 225 hours a month, often for wages below the national average for Japanese adults. With the anime industry running full tilt to meet global demand, Japanese studios are relying more on countries like South Korea for production, cutting costs and squeezing in more deadlines.
To shake things up, Netflix plans to demand invoices from the entire production chain, cutting out middlemen who just hike up costs. This should give investors a clearer view of where their money’s going, allowing them to insist on specific improvements. Netflix also brags about improving live-action standards, introducing privacy coordinators and encouraging a “harmonious” on-set environment.
Contracts in anime production are a huge sticking point. JAniCA’s 2023 survey showed over 20% of animators didn’t even know the terms of their contracts. A lack of clear contracts has left freelancers constantly scrambling for work, something Japanese studios can’t seem to fix.
Additionally, JAniCA also proclaimed that the average number of hours worked per month was 273 hours in 2008, 263 hours in 2013, 231 hours in 2017, and 198 hours in 2021 so conditions are slowly but surely improving for Japanese workers who bring our favorite franchises to life.
Netflix, along with other industry players, aims to boost contract transparency, pointing to the success of studio DandeLion’s contract database used in their work on The First Slam Dunk.
Another major issue Netflix raised was the difference between Japanese and Western labor protections. They noted that unions like SAG-AFTRA in the West have managed to push through better wages and working conditions, a system Netflix claims would be less effective in Japan.
However, the Japan Animators Association (NAFCA) argues the opposite, saying that skill-based certifications could help ensure fairer pay for more experienced creators.
Cultural values play into this, with Japanese society often revolving around loyalty and an almost patriotic sense of duty to one’s company, unlike in places like the U.S., where workers bounce from job to job seeking higher pay or personal growth.
In Japan, employment defines social identity, creating a heavy stigma around unemployment as a failure to fulfill one’s societal role. Meanwhile, Netflix and other foreign companies, perhaps hoping to mold Japan’s labor culture to better fit their own are grappling with Japan’s uniquely integrated company-based unions. Unlike Western unions, which fight for sweeping industry-wide changes, Japanese unions tend to work within the company to secure stability and gradual improvements.
Look at SAG-AFTRA, the Western union representing voice actors. This profession is often associated with political activists and talentless voices who ruin both video games and anime with god-awful voice work. Threatening to strike over AI replacements, as if this tool wouldn’t do the job just as well, if not better at a fraction of the cost.
Meanwhile, localizers at Crunchyroll and elsewhere churn out “adapted” material in English, subverting the original content for amusement and a paycheck, not out of any real respect for the source material.
These people unionize to hold onto their jobs because they love getting paid for wrecking other people’s creative work.
Take Katrina Leonoudakis, a localizer infamous for injecting Western slang and personal opinions into Japanese anime and games, effectively creating fanfiction rather than faithful translations.
She’s worked on Persona titles and even ATLUS’ Metaphor: ReFantazio, and she loudly supports unions protecting localizers from being replaced by AI. But AI translations will handle the job faster, cheaper, and without distorting the original content to push political bullshit or cringeworthy slang.
Lastly, Netflix touted its ranking reports, like the “What We Watched: A Netflix Engagement Report,” saying it empowers creators with data to secure better terms in licensing negotiations.
They also took the chance to praise adaptations like One Piece while sidestepping disasters like Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft, which has audiences facepalming over a beefed-up, gender-bending portrayal of Lara Croft complete with the standard token representation nonsense.
Then there’s Netflix’s remake of Ranma 1/2, complete with censorship stripping out nipple nudity and tweaking the premise to fit some misguided notion of “relatable” content for the global audience.
This is Netflix’s legacy in Japanese animation: stripping away traditional elements and carefully watering down the content for mass appeal, just as Japanese studios are churning out more shows than ever under grueling conditions to meet this so-called “global demand.”
It certainly doesn’t help that the idea of a boy being transformed into a girl against his will due to a curse has somehow been twisted by Western audiences into some bizarre endorsement of transgenderism, with some even calling it a form of “egg cracking.”
Netflix’s influence on Japanese animation has already made this shift painfully clear, nudity is now strictly off-limits, and there’s a drastic reduction in “sexualization,” all to ensure that productions are “safe” and sanitized for global audiences all the while Netflix tries to convince us that they’re saving Japan from itself.
