There’s been a lot of talk in recent months ( years, even ) about the low wages in the anime industry , especially for entry-level animators. But just how much (or little, rather) do newbie animators make? A thorough study by the Japanese government has …Read more »
Last week we posted a primer detailing many of the real-life counterparts to characters in Shirobako , the recently-finished very meta series about working in the anime industry. Some of those characters’ real-life inspirations were more obvious than others (Masahiko Inami/Masahiko Minami, for instance, was …Read more »
Gainax, the anime studio behind such projects as Wings of Honneamise , Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann , has opened an anime museum in rural Miharu, Fukushima Prefecture. Fukushima is recovering from 2011’s triple earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster. Gainax president Yoshinori Asao, originally …Read more »
Once again, it’s time to check in on everyone’s favorite “open but not working on anything” anime studio, Ghibli, with a couple interesting tidbits that hit the net this week. First off, The Kingdom of Dreams and Madness , the 2014 documentary about the inner …Read more »
Back in July of last year we posted about the creation of Manga-Anime Guardians , an initiative started by the Japanese government in order to reduce piracy of anime and manga online. Manga-Anime Guardians have now reported about their progress for the first time. In …Read more »
The Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs announced Thursday the winners of 2014’s Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Recommendation Awards, and the Rookie of the Year for media/arts went to none other than Masashi Kishimoto, creator of the recently-completed manga Naruto . …Read more »
Sad news out of Japan today with the passing of Yoshihiro Tatsumi, the legendary manga artist who pioneered gekiga, or manga aimed at adult audiences. He was 79. Tatsumi, born in 1935, coined the term “gekiga” (literally “dramatic pictures”) in 1957 to describe the dark, …Read more »
Today marks NIS America's premium Blu-ray release of Chronicles of the Going Home Club , so it's the perfect time for an exchange with the anime's director, Hikaru Sato. We took some of our own questions and some from our readers and sent them over, …Read more »
It’s been about a week since animator, character designer and blogger Sachiko Kamimura stirred up a lot of discussion – both in Japanese and English – about the low wages paid to new animators in Japan. Kamimura wrote in her original post that because animators …Read more »
Shirobako 's Ema reacting to her paycheck. A newbie animator in Japan gets paid around 120 yen – that’s one, yes, one dollar – an hour. Kamimura (photo by Okki ) That’s the word from animator and character designer Sachiko Kamimura ( City Hunter , …Read more »
Ken Sugimori is a cool dude. You might think the guy who helped co-create Pokemon would be a little arrogant, spending his days in some kind of ivory tower, sleeping on top of large piles of money, and generally being a media gadfly. But if …Read more »
Is Hypersonic Music Club the comic-drawing debut of fashion/music/pop illustrator Hiroyuki Takahashi? Is Hypersonic Music Club the manga-writing debut of pop culture critic and Otaku USA Editor-in-Chief Patrick Macias ( Tokyoscope: The Japanese Film Companion , Japanese Schoolgirl Inferno , Cruising the Anime City: An …Read more »
If you are at all interested in the works of Mamoru Oshii ( Patlabor , Ghost in the Shell , Jin-Roh ) may we heartily recommend this in-depth interview from last year’s Toronto International Film Festival? “One hour twenty minutes?!” you scream. But trust us. …Read more »
Regrets. We’ve all got a few, and that includes Cross Ange creative producer Mitsuo Fukuda, who took to Twitter the other day to apologize/rant about the new opening for the show, which debuted in episode 13. Comprised largely of clips from the first 12 episodes, …Read more »
How nice of them. Several anime studios have taken to Twitter and their own sites this morning to wish us all a happy New Year. Without further ado, let’s take a look at some of their messages and images. Studio Khara 新年あけましておめでとうございます。本年もどうぞ、よろしくお願いいたします。 pic.twitter.com/G4lkZMkXZM — 株式会社カラー …Read more »
Matt Schley
Joseph Luster
Jason Moses
Jason Bradley Thompson
