You know, things had been going pretty well for me this week. I just finished Kirby’s Return Dream Land Deluxe, the second Wo Long demo was super fun, and I even managed to get ahead of schedule on some manga I was sent to review. With that all done I was finally going to get another anime review posted here and it was going to be great because I have so much to say about that particular title (it’s about a guitarist, hint hint). Unfortunately, everything else I wanted to work on has to be sidelined so I can instead talk about the misguided ideas of Tonari Animation CEO, Jarrett Martin.
Speaking to ANN this week, Martin discussed some of the problems currently plaguing the anime industry: the pay is low, the production schedules are absurd, and there is a lack of incoming skilled labor. To give him some credit, these statements are, in fact, true. This is where the sensible part of the interview ends as Martin’s proposed solution to the woes of the anime industry, and its workers, is AI and NFTs.1 Loveridge and Morrissy, (2023, March 1st) Tonari Animation’s CEO on Which Innovations Will Help the Anime Industry. Anime News Network https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interview/2023-03-01/tonari-animation-ceo-on-which-innovations-will-help-the-anime-industry/.195203 Oh boy.
“It allows people to own digital art, which is kind of interesting”
The suggested implementation of NFTs as a funding source for anime production is the more blatantly controversial idea so let’s start with that. At this point, I would like to believe that most people understand that NFTs are a scam that exist to get you to buy crypto.2Folding Ideas – Line Goes Up https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g The entire NFT marketplace is a system of smoke vendors gambling with each other as they try to legitimize the smoke they are selling though hype and myth making. The problem is that crypto isn’t real money and therefore has no actual value. Smoke vendors can’t cash out because the system lacks liquidity. That is the purpose of NFTs, to convince the public of value where there is none so they will buy in and inject new money into the system. Martin either doesn’t understand this, or is tacitly aware of the problem but sees Bored Apes selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars and wants to get in on it. The fact that one of Tonari Animation’s biggest clients was for an NFT anime project is, let’s say, a cause for concern.
I also really need to point out that NFTs are not a way to own digital art. An NFT proves ownership as much as a certificate from the Star Register does. NFTS are ultimately exploitative and abusive so it makes sense why the ghouls running the anime industry would be interested in them. That being said, it is a niche technology mired in bad publicity and most people are immediately put off the moment you mention them. I find his push for the wider adoption of AI artwork to be far more insidious.
“I think it might be similar to when anime went digital”
The above quote is the what drove me to writing this article because it’s a false equivalency that really worries me when it comes from the president of an animation studio. Let me just say now that digital tools are not inherently a bad thing, nor are advancements in technology when they make our lives better. We at Warmadillo Inc. stan air conditioning and rice cookers. Furthermore, the transition to digital artwork from cel painting streamlines the process and allows the artist to work more efficiently than a strictly analog system. However, that is not the purpose of AI. AI’s relationship to the artist is to consume as much of their output until it reaches the point where it can replace them.
You may think that sounds needlessly dire but I argue that market incentives make it an eventual guarantee. AI does not exist in a vacuum, it is being built by someone to serve their interests. The ones building the AI models aren’t the artists, the artists just feed it, the models are being built by corporations to be sold to other corporations. AI as it is currently being developed, is not designed to improve the lives of workers, it’s to improve the bottom line of their soon-to-be former employers. We’re already seeing it happen in real time as corporate ghouls salivate over how many people they’ve managed to fire and replace with ChatGPT. 3Wilson, (2023, February 27th) Survey finds many employers laying off workers because of ChatGPT. Canadian HRReporter https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/automation-ai/survey-finds-many-employers-laying-off-workers-because-of-chatgpt/373964#:~:text=Artificial%20Intelligence%20chatbot%20ChatGPT%20came,to%20do%20so%2C%20reports%20ResumeBuilder.
That’s why I get a burning sensation behind my eyes when I see a company president in an industry suffering from under-payment and over-work advocate for the adoption of AI. This addresses no structural issues to the industry or the systems that propagate and incentivize those issues. It’s a defense of the status-quo masquerading as forward-thinking acumen, encouraging us all to “keep an open mind” as new technologies are leveraged to exploit workers even further. I reject these ideas in their entirety.
I have some suggestions for anime
I’m not dismissing Martin’s ideas because I think things are fine the way they are, quite the opposite. I do want the anime industry to change because, given its current volatility, it’s on track to die. Its business model, its output, and the way it churns through workers is not sustainable. To that end, I have some radical recommendations to improve the situation. I know lizard men in suits have a hard time focusing so I’ve organized my suggestions into a handy bulleted list:
- Pay your workers more. Art and animation is a specialized form of labor and employees should be compensated to reflect that.
- Produce less anime. You’re putting out too many shows each season and so many of them are not worth watching. Instead of throwing 30 darts in random directions every year and hoping one of them lands, try aiming and focus on producing less shows of higher quality.
- Increase the production timeline for the shows you do take on. I’ve seen the spreadsheets for a standard TV anime production schedule. Knock that shit off. We can watch it when it’s done.
- Pay your workers more. Like, seriously, do that.
Anime rules, I’ve been saying it for years and have recruited no small amount of people into this hobby. It’s niche, weird, and full of stories that would have no chance of ever being produced in another medium. I would like for it to stick around but only if the people that make it are able to thrive and be content rather than having their dedication and passion ground out of them. The way to do that is to treat them better, not by trying to offset production costs with scams and certainly not by threatening their livelihood with AI.
AI and NFTs will not save anime, better leadership, better wages, and better conditions will.