An article from the Weekly Toyo Keizai recently became a trend after breaking down the costs incurred for the production of a normal-length episode (ie, for a 30-minute broadcast block that includes commercials) for a television anime series. The data became extremely viral because fans had no idea that the costs amounted to around 31.2 million yen (over $224,000) per episode.
This means that for a twelve-episode anime series, the costs amount to more than 374 million yen (more than $2.69 million). However, let’s remember that this is not the first time we have seen this exorbitant amount of money.
When the franchise Jashin-chan Dropkick (Dropkick On My Devil!) announced the opening of its unlimited fundraising campaign, had stated that for every 30 million yen raised it would ensure the production of a new OVA, and so on. So, we have two sources confirming that to produce a single episode of an anime, that amount is required.
But let’s review what the breakdown revealed by the Weekly Toyo Keizai:
- Commission for Use of Original Work – 200,000 yen.
- settings – 2,400,000 yen.
- Script – 250,000 yen.
- I counted – 250,000 yen.
- Production costs – 1,800,000 yen.
- Address – 3,000,000 yen.
- Animation Direction – 3,000,000 yen.
- Production process – 1,500,000 yen.
- Rate per Frame (including layouts) – 6,000,000 yen.
- Animation Fee – 1,200,000 yen.
- Scenarios, Background Design – 2,000,000 yen.
- Costs for CG Animation (including 3D layouts) – 2,000,000 yen.
- Coloring Fee – 900,000 yen.
- Photography – 1,000,000 yen.
- Editing (including video editing fee) – 400,000 yen.
- Production Materials – 300,000 yen.
- audio editing – 2,000,000 yen.
- Administrative expenses – 3,000,000 yen.
- TOTAL AMOUNT – 31,200,000 yen for the production of a single episode.
And it was clear that this would not go unnoticed in the comment forums:
- «Oh no, that’s why making original works is not profitable».
- «As always, an abusive work environment».
- «Animation directors earn too much, from my perspective».
- «I don’t understand how the anime industry works, but doesn’t the director take care of everything? Why do you need an animation director?».
- «An animation director earns 3 million yen, unbelievable. Well, that’s if there was only one, but I doubt any series only has one animation director per episode.».
- «I thought authors earned ten percent commission for the use of their work, but now I see it’s only 200,000 yen».
- «The author of Gintama had already said it, neither the anime series nor the movies give you profit as an author».
- «Now I see why production committees are necessary, a studio can’t spend all that money».
- «And where are the salaries for voice actors?».
- «The cost of the stages is extremely high, don’t they earn more than the animators?».
- «According to me, only very high quality anime like Kimetsu no Yaiba or Chainsaw Man cost 30 million yen per episode. But I think Jashin-chan Dropkick had said something similar».
- «But remember, producing an episode takes months, can you survive on those salaries?».
- «All this will be reduced to only 1 million yen if we use the AIs».
- «Other reports say that big studios like A-1 Pictures, CloverWorks, and MAPPA spend 50 million yen per episode!».
