I’ve spoken before about “The Economics of Anime” where I broke down how anime in general earns revenue. As part of that article, I mentioned how pay for animators have been kept obscenely low and that this is leading to a crisis within the industry where fewer and fewer Japanese animators are working on anime series and, instead, much of the animation is being outsourced to overseas studios. As one of many responses to this dilemma, the Young Animator Training Project was established.
The Young Animator Training Project was originally established in 2010 as an initiative by both the Japanese government’s Ministry for Cultural Affairs and the Japanese Animation Creators Association, a company that seeks to improve the working conditions of the industry’s animators. They were originally provided $2.27 million to create four short films with all animation to be done within Japan itself with the goal of teaching younger animators the skills and techniques associated with animating.
In 2014, it was announced that the Japanese Animation Creators Association was pulling out of the initiative and the Association of Japanese Animations has since taken over the project. The release of shorts produced for the project has also gone through some name changes with the initial release referred to as Project A. Between 2012 and 2015, these releases were referred to as Anime Mirai (with Mirai being the Japanese word for future) and since 2016, they have been referred to as Anime Tamago (with Tamago being the Japanese word for egg).
The project has seen the involvement of many animation companies such as TMS Entertainment, Production I.G., Madhouse, Tezuka Productions and even Studio Trigger who produced their first original work for the project. It’s also worth noting that several of the shorts have gone on to inspire full anime series such as Little Witch Academia, Ongaku Shojo and Death Billiards which eventually became Death Parade.
At this point, I would like to bring up the fact that animating anime is very different to animating Western animation. Japan has been cultivating very unique techniques and methods regarding animation since the mid-1900s and the threat of losing these distinct techniques is one of the reasons why the Young Animator Training Project is of vital importance to the anime industry.
Of course, the preservation of these techniques is not the only solution to the ongoing crisis in the anime industry and, eventually, the industry as a whole will have to reform itself in order to become more enticing for potential job applicants and provide better working conditions to help reduce the amount of animators leaving the industry. However, this shouldn’t take away from the fact that the Young Animator Training Project is incredibly important and must continue to be maintained for the sake of the anime industry’s future.
Let me know if you’ve heard of the Young Animator Training Project before, whether you have seen any of the shorts that they’ve produced, your thoughts on the initiative and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!