Jujutsu Kaisen 0 Chief Animation Director Terumi Nishii has painted a dark picture of the future of the anime industry, suggesting that people should soon expect more anime studio bankruptcies.
Nishii said in a post to X (formerly Twitter), "In the future, the capacity of each company will be completely exhausted. We expect to see more and more bankruptcies due to the fact that a production scheduled for 3 years from now will be finished in 5 years, but the budget has been spent on another production😋. I wonder how many animators will be able to survive at that time. The careless ones will be cut off. Let's all study up!"
Major Anime Industry Figures Are Concerned About Budgets and Production Times
Other industry figures back Nishii's concerns over anime budgets. Anime production commonly begins around three years before airing. For example, Solo Leveling producer Atsushi Kaneko recently shared in the new Solo Leveling special that he received the project outline in July 2020. Given that animation typically happens at the latter end of production, an excessive number of retakes due to low competency means additional compensation. If this can't be accounted for, other projects that are also underway will collapse despite significant work being done, resulting in bankruptcy.
Jujutsu Kaisen Animation Director Predicts the Anime Industry's Impending Collapse
Nishii's comments were part of a thread where she spoke about NAFCA's upcoming book for an Animators Skills Certification. Nishii has long maintained that the anime industry's impending collapse owes heavily to the decline in the newer generation's skills. She also previously blasted the practice of hiring animators over social media, which she considers drafting in cheap labor who won't have the time or environment to learn from their mistakes and improve. NAFCA hopes to introduce an Animators Skills Certification, which will standardize skills and open a pathway to ability being commensurate with job prospects and pay.
As chief animation director for the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 film, with similar credits for JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable, Mawaru Penguindrum and more, a core part of Nishii's role is correcting animator drawings that don't meet acceptable standards. She has previously spoken about the massive health pressures placed on animation directors, who are integral to an anime maintaining a consistent design. Bleach: The Thousand Year Blood War chief animation director Kiyoshi Komatsubara opened up on this late last year, with the animator describing year-end health issues for two years in a row. "I realize that I am getting older and need to take care of my health, so I will be more careful next year," he added.
Source: Nishii Terumi via X (formerly Twitter)
