MAPPA or Project No.9 Would Owe China Money

It is a reality that anime is no longer produced in Japan, but the studios themselves hire international companies to help them get the projects out in the time designated by the production committee. Many of the animators come from China and South Korea, but hires have been reported from Europe, Latin America and even North Korea.

However, it seems that this "outsourcing" has created more problems than solutions, especially for Japanese workers themselves. Because remote work is complicated to manage, anime studios prefer to have the animators themselves review and correct the work sent from abroad, which evidently increases their workload without any salary increase.

But even what the animation studios save (because they are the ones who sub-contract, not the committees) doesn't seem to be enough, since OneGhostStudio, a studio based in China, reported that an anime studio in Japan hasn't paid them for their services in months. The full complaint, posted via Twitter, wrote:

• "Our company received an order worth almost 4 million yen at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. To date, however, no payment has been made for various reasons. It's been six months now and we're a Chinese company, so the exchange rate from the Japanese yen to the yuan has gone down. We're actually suffering losses, but we don't care about that."

• "We just want to get paid as soon as possible. We have already provided you with payment methods and procedures. We don't know what difficulties you are facing, but we are in a very difficult situation right now. We have to pay our employees."

• "We've tried our best during production, but why is the other party so slow when we need payment? If we weren't really in trouble, we wouldn't be making it public on Twitter. If we all do our business well, everyone will be happy, right?"

Sadly, OneGhostStudio doesn't mention which studio owes you money. However, it's probably the one you have in mind. Going through different sources, we can see that this China-based studio was involved in the anime adaptation of "Butareba: The Story of a Man Turned into a Pig" and the original anime "Bucchigiri?!".

Both productions could fit the description made by the studio, as it mentions that "the promise of payment was made at the end of 2023 or beginning of 2024". In the case of "Butareba: The Story of a Man Turned into a Pig" from Project No.9 they participated in "Episode 12", while in "Bucchigiri?!" from MAPPA they participated in "Episode 8".

It is important to remember that episodes do not start production the same day they air, as production begins months or even years before. In addition, OneGhostStudio's involvement is limited to the aforementioned episodes within the key animation, so they could have done it from a few days before the broadcast to even months. So who do you think is the studio that owes them money?

Source: Otakomu