A week ago, Animation Director Ippei Ichii took to Twitter to express his disappointment in the offered rates to work on a show at MAPPA produced by Netflix. He claimed that he was offered just 3,800 yen (US$34) per cut (for a short scene) for the unnamed series. Now the Animation Studio has responded to the claims and says that the information was “misleadingly disclosed” which made some of the facts be “taken out of context” and enforce “misunderstandings and speculations” that promoted “unjustified distortion of the truth.” Here is their statement:
We have recently noticed that some internal information about an unpublished work was misleadingly disclosed on social media.
As a result, some of the facts were taken out of context and other information was added based on misunderstandings and speculations, resulting in unjustified distortion of the truth and causing a great deal of inconvenience to our clients and other people involved in the work.
In the past, as well as in the case of this work, we have never forced creators to accept commissions at unreasonably low prices that were not in proportion with production costs.
Since many companies and creators are involved in the production of animation works, conditions are agreed upon between the parties involved and information management is also under strict control. Especially for works that have not yet been published, there is a risk that the parties involved may be accused of violating the contract and the work itself may be abandoned. We strongly object to such unauthorized disclosure of information and will take appropriate action.
Our company aims to produce the best work possible within the scope of the production costs set for each project, and we will continue to make every possible effort to do so. We will strive to continue to improve the working environment and conditions for each project every day.
Thank you very much for your continued support.”
It was not 100% confirmed in the above statement if the project MAPPA is discussing is one they have worked on in the past or taking over an anime project from a previous studio. This isn’t the first time Mappa has come under fire, in May a freelance animator tweeted that they left MAPPA due to the “factory-like” conditions. They criticized MAPPA’s decision to work on four shows at the same time instead of properly training its team so that such corrections wouldn’t be necessary, and said, “As far as I can tell, about 80% of the employees had similar complaints at the time.” Projects such as the Animator Dormitory Project have sprung up to help animators with housing costs while they start in the industry, helping animators that have since gone on to work on Attack on Titan, Black Clover, and many other anime projects. According to Anime Corner, it looks like the Studio will also be improving their workplace environment.
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