It’s no secret that the anime world has an issue when it comes to the treatment of animators and conditions that will sometimes lead to “animator burn-out”. In recent memory, there have been anime productions that have seen the animators responsible for the creation of beloved series taking to social media to share their thoughts and sometimes share the hardships they are dealing with. Now, the animation director for Kingdom shares his thoughts that anime fans have a hand in the treatment of animators.
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Jun Arai is no stranger to the anime world outside of Kingdom. The director has played a role in quite a few anime franchises including One Piece, Gurren Lagann, Outlaw Star, and Sword Art Online to name a few. In a recent social media post, Arai didn’t pull any punches when it came to pointing a finger at the fans.
Kingdom Director Speaks Out
Arai began his posts by stating that his year was looking quite busy, with the director helming the fifth season of Kingdom, “I have a lot of challenges at work this yearLast year, I realized that the unit price of anime companies is that the more high-quality works are produced and the more popular they are with fans, the lower the unit price. People who don’t think about things like that do it, but I just can’t accept it. Generally speaking, the higher the reputation of a company, the cheaper it is to buy animation.”
Jun then continued, “The reason there haven’t been more whistleblowing exposés by active anime industry animators isn’t just fear of being shut out by that company – it’s the fear of also being bashed by fans who love that company’s works and being crushed in two ways. Famous or not, it doesn’t matter. The anime consumer sphere is that warped and sick. When people are fanatically in love, mistakes like that happen.”
The first four seasons of this historical recreation are currently available to stream on Crunchyroll. Here’s how the streaming service describes the beloved anime, “Shin and Hyou are war orphans in the kingdom of Qin. They dream of proving themselves on the battlefield until the day Hyou is captured by a minister. The boy manages to escape and return to his village, but he is badly injured. Shin then meets a mysterious youth who bears an eerie resemblance to Hyou—a boy who will one day become emperor!”
