Former JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Animator Says Netflix Productions Don't Pay Staffers Any Better
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has been ascending in popularity with each new season, following new [...]
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure has been ascending in popularity with each new season, following new generations of Joestar across the years, but one former animator for the series has added their controversial thoughts about Netflix's behind the scenes treatment of animators versus other animation studios. In a recent interview with a Japanese outlet, Terumi Nishii shared her thoughts about how Netflix pays their animators, following her tenure as an animator on the fourth season of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in Diamond Is Unbreakable from David Production which followed the protagonist Josuke in the sleepy town of Morioh.
One of the major complaints that Nishii had with the streaming service of Netflix, which has been diving more into the world of anime with their own original productions, is that the budgets of said anime seemingly don't pay the animators more for their work, but rather, keep their wages the same as other companies while diverting funds into other methods of production. With anime originals such as Cannon Busters, Aggretsuko, and Devilman Crybaby, to name only a few, Netflix has been trying to keep up with other streaming services such as Funimation and Crunchyroll when it comes to cornering the market of the medium of anime.
In an interview with Japanese Outlet, IT Media Online, Terumi Nishii shared her behind the scenes knowledge of Netflix's production, going into detail about the situation for animators and whether or not they are paid more based on the increased budget from the streaming service:
"From my point of view, there isn't any difference. It's said that Netflix's commissions's budget is twice the usual budget, but that does not translate in animators being paid double. The studios isn't exactly smiling, the situation is the same."
Nishii also went into detail about how Netflix's decision to release all the episodes of a season at once can sometimes be more stressful for the animators that are working behind the scenes:
"The deadline for the anime's production is fixed in the contract, and compared to TV broadcasted anime, in this case it's much more pressuring, I think. But to be honest I'm not a producer, I wouldn't know. But, since Netflix is the only one paying for it, it's the only one holding the IP. The studio, albeit it's the one who made the show, don't own any rights over it. The situation is different when the studio owns the IP and simply sell the broadcasting rights to Netflix. In which case, the IP is still of the studio."
What are your thoughts on Temuri Nishii's behind the scenes expertise? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime!