The anime industry is infamous for having underpaid animators, but one studio is looking to change that. Recently, TMS Entertainment announced that it is raising salaries for employees by 30%.
Meanwhile, new hires will get a 24% increase, as well as a base monthly salary of JPY 260,000 (around USD 1,980).
TMS Entertainment is the studio behind lots of well-known shows like Fruits Basket, Rent-A-Girlfriend, and Dr. Stone. This means lots of animators stand to benefit from this raise in salaries.
The Anime Industry’s Underpaid Workers Controversy
Over the past years, anime has exploded in popularity around the world. However, the anime industry has a reputation for having lots of underpaid staff members so more shows can be produced with less budget.
Of course, not every animator has a low salary, though there have been many animators in the industry that have come forward with their struggles.
It doesn’t help that there are also reports about how anime production companies are pushing studios to create more projects. This was said to be one of the main reasons for the anime delays of Winter 23.
While there are some studios with good reputations when it comes to employee compensation and workload, there are others that have been embroiled in issues.
One of the most well-known examples is MAPPA, the popular studio behind hits such as Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan: The Final Season, and Chainsaw Man.
Because of how prolific the studio is, there have been reports about how animators in the studio are overworked and underpaid.
Following the MAPPA controversy, it seems that studios have taken note and have begun focusing more on proper compensation and workloads for their staff members.
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Anime Studio TMS Entertainment Raises Base Salaries of Staff
TMS Entertainment’s salary raise for workers is a welcome step in the right direction.
According to the studio’s official announcement, the raise was made possible by including some of the advanced pay for employees into their regular bonuses.
This is also related to video game studio SEGA’s 30% salary raise for employees.
Both SEGA and TMS Entertainment are part of the SEGA Sammy Group, so this raise is likely a group-wide mandate.
While there’s no doubt that this is great news for TMS Entertainment’s employees, the hope here is that other anime studios follow suit so that more animators in the industry can get properly compensated.
Another area that studios can also improve on is compensation and workload for outsourced animation studios.
After all, there are also reports about how animators outside Japan who work on anime are paid at low rates.
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Source: TMS Entertainment
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