We've known this for years, but it's nice to see it reported in The New York Times. However, they don't mention the constant outsourcing of animation over the years to China, Korea, the Philippines, etc., that also undercuts the wages paid to animators in Japan.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/24/b...WoXon6BTVEzpFY

I'm not sure it's fair to compare the salary to special effects animators in the US. My suspicion is that the vast majority if not all of the kind of work that we're talking about here has been outsourced out of America completely, and has been for some time.

That said, the conditions are abysmal and I'm not sure what can be done about it besides changing (or maybe enforcing) Japanese labor laws. It's an industry where there are a plethora of people who want to get in on the ground floor. Being a fledgling (or even veteran) manga artist is the same way. The shocking thing is that the guy they're writing about is not a newbie. But I guess he has nowhere else to go?

From the outside it looks like a brutal job to have in Japan.