Over Half of New Animators Report Getting Financial Support From Family

AEYAC (pronounced "ay-yack"), a new non-profit organization (NPO) dedicated to supporting young anime creators, surveyed young animators in Japan about their lifestyle during the 2016 fiscal year. More than half of respondents reported receiving financial support from family while working.

The NPO conducted the survey to investigate the work situations and living conditions of anime creators with up to three years of experience. The survey for the 2016 fiscal year was AEYAC's first, and it collected online replies from 153 animators. Among the respondents, 29% were male, 69% were female, and 2% identified as "other."

A total of 53% of respondents reported receiving some kind of financial support from their families: 35% said that they lived in their family home, and 18% reported that they lived away from home but still received an allowance. Among those that lived with their parents or family members, all respondents said that they did not provide the main source of income for their family.

Additionally, 58% of animators that did not live with their families said that they had had to draw from savings to support their daily lives. Among animators who had to pay rent, 32% reported the cost as between 30,000 and 50,000 yen (about US$261 to US$435), which was the mode range for those respondents.

The majority of respondents said that their commutes were 30 minutes long or less, and people with commutes between one and one and a half hours long comprised 14% of the survey group. Among animators living with family, 61% reported a commute time of more than one hour. On the other hand, 76% of respondents not living with family had commutes of 30 minutes or less.

Among survey respondents, 33% reported that they were paying back loans under Japan's scholarship system. According to Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO), a scholarship loan provider, 37.7% of students took out scholarship loans in 2012, and the current survey sample showed results around the same level. The survey showed that, in addition to low industry wages, the problem of loan repayment was a main factor contributing to problems in young animators' daily lives.

AEYAC will announce the full results of the survey and publish a report in February.

AEYAC launched a crowdfunding campaign on December 1 to to help cover its necessary expenses for the 2016 fiscal year. As of press time, the campaign has raised 41,800 yen (US$362) of its of its 300,000-yen (US$2,636) goal. The crowdfunding campaign is running until December 31.

The Japan Animation Creators Association (JAniCA) published a report in April 2015 that showed animators earned an average of 3.3283 million yen (about US$27,689) in Japan in 2013. The mode result for yearly income in 2013 was 4.0 million yen (US$33,000). JAniCA's study also reported that young animators worked an average of 11 hours every day, and in-between (dōga) animators — many of whom are in their 20s — earned a yearly income of around 1.1 million yen (around US$9,200).​