The first thing we said is that the salaries of animators in Japan are quite precarious if we compare them not only with other professions, but also with the average rural salary. However, despite the frequent criticism of this system, in the end production companies are not doing much to improve working conditions, especially now that they can hire remote workers.
Many people think that remote work has become the coffin of hope for Japanese animators, because if a Japanese person is not willing to work for the salary that the companies are offering, surely someone in China, South Korea or someone else will. country will Finally, this situation is illustrated again when Twitter user “@hi_na_ta_0821”, who describes himself as a Japanese animator who worked for ENGI students, shared the following update (now deleted);
- “ENGI Studios, I have not received 1.67 million Japanese coins, and my salary is not for September, what is going on? I probably can’t afford them anymore, but I try to keep my books up to date. I will call them.”
In the photograph we can see that it is a paid job (animators are usually not part-time workers in the studio, but are hired from the outside and do not sign a contract to “be part of the company”). The animator in question indicated that he should receive for his work 1,672,000 coins (about US$ 12,400) or so assumed.
It turns out that the payment reveals what is to be paid, but not what the guest has received. The interesting thing is that when the salary is issued with this figure, the animator has to pay the rent of the whole amount, which makes financial matters even more difficult.
The user ended up deleting the file, probably because the situation was finally resolved. In fact, he had already reported this in another place: “I don’t know if they will cancel on Twitter this time, but I did it for insurance. If I don’t push so hard, even if they don’t have bad intentions, I’ll force them to not pay their bad taxes. I decided to delete it once.
However, the fact that ENGI students leave “paid salaries” has raised a lot of suspicions in Japanese fans, especially since the students could come out with non-existent employee salaries with the end of making an evasive tax (by remembering to pay more of those wages. who also had, reduce their earnings and therefore the total amount of taxes they must pay).
ENGI students were created recently, in 2018, and have produced great projects such as Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai!, Tantei wa Mou, Shindeiru., Captured in Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs and Full Dive: The Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Even Shittier Than Real Life!, to name a few.
Indeed, the matter attracted comments on Japanese forums:
- “I never thought I’d read a criticism of ENGI management.”
- “Oh no, is this the beginning of the end of ENGI studies?”
- “This is the tragedy that the Kantai Collection is doing to its students.”
- « “Shinmai Renkinjutsushi no Tenpo Keiei” and “Keikenzumi na Kimi ad, Keiken Zero na Ore ga, Otsukiai suru Hanashi.” son proyectos de ENGI, we hope that no les pase nada».
- “People want to work for a company that has some credibility.”
- “If you don’t take yourself seriously, you can go to the tax agency and say: ‘My sender sent me a false proof of payment and they didn’t pay attention to me when I asked them.’ I assure you that the accuser will be known immediately.
- “How can ENGI commit to the animation of “Gamra: Rebirth” in this state of affairs, with a soul ship running out of ideas and a salary?”
- “I don’t know if it’s true because only one person is saying it, but if it’s true, it means that the company can fake the subcontracting system to make false claims about paid wages and pretending to be ‘paying wages.'”
- “It’s a lot of trouble, but with Kadokawa behind them, they couldn’t stop tax evasion.”
