Japan’s Animation Industry Isn’t Just Tough, It’s “Illegally Harsh” Says American Artist
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/artist-rights/japans-animation-industry-isnt-just-tough-its-illegally-harsh-110074.html
American animator Henry Thurlow moved to Tokyo to live out his dream of creating anime in the Japanese animation industry.
It took him four years to become good enough to get hired at a studio. When he finally achieved his goal, he discovered work conditions that were nothing short of slave labor,
with studios paying as low as $25 per week. Says Thurlow to Buzzfeed:
“Let’s just be clear: It’s not a ‘tough’ industry… It’s an ‘illegally harsh’ industry. They don’t pay you even remotely minimum wage,
they overwork you to the point where people are vomiting at work and having to go to the hospital for medicine.
They demand that you come in whenever they realize a deadline isn’t going to be met. That probably means about a month and a half of nonstop work without a single day off.
Then you will be allowed to go back to your regular six-day workweeks of 10-hour days. No one talks, or gets lunch together or anything. They just sit and work in complete silence and seem uninterested in changing this.”