The Anime Industry's Real Crisis Isn't About Paychecks: Why Everyone Keeps Looking at the Wrong Problem
Every time a report surfaces about working conditions in anime, the conversation lands in the same place: animators earn too little, and something must change. It’s a comfortable diagnosis. A single, tangible number to point at and say, “There. That’s the problem.”
But Takeshi Natsuno, CEO of Kadokawa, recently argued that staring at that number is like diagnosing a fever while ignoring the infection beneath. His point isn’t that animators are paid fairly — let’s not be daft. It’s that salary is a symptom, not the disease.
The Real Disease — A Radically Fragmented Industry
Japan’s anime sector isn’t a polished studio system. It’s more like a constellation of tiny workshops, each with its own captain, its own sales team, its own overhead. A huge portion of revenue gets swallowed not by creation, but by the duplication of admin.
Multiply that by the sheer number of studios that exist and you get an industry where managerial bloat would make a 1970s British Leyland executive nod in recognition.
During a discussion about Japan’s content industry future in April, Natsuno was direct:
Japan has too many small anime studios. That is what is killing the profitability of the sector.
Every small company carries its own:
- President and executive team
- Sales department
- Administrative structure
- Management overhead
That’s an enormous amount of money going into structures that could be shared instead of into the actual animation.
How Deep Does the Fragmentation Go?
To illustrate, Natsuno pointed to his own industry. Kadokawa, one of Japan’s largest publishers, controls only 20% of the publishing market. The remaining 80% is scattered among dozens of smaller competitors.
If fragmentation is already a problem in books, in anime — where margins are tighter and production costs keep rising — the situation is considerably worse.
The Prescription — Consolidation Through Mergers
Natsuno’s proposal is straightforward: merge studios. Not a gentle suggestion, but a practical industrial solution.
His example was disarmingly simple. If Kadokawa merged with seven other production studios:
- Seven executive salaries disappear immediately
- Seven sales teams collapse into one
- Seven administrative departments become a single, efficient structure
- Wasted overhead converts into actual production capacity
It’s an idea that’s boringly logical in other sectors. But in anime — where studios often feel like personal fiefdoms of their founders — it’s rather like suggesting the local cricket club merge with the county team.
What He Doesn’t Want — Government Handouts
Natsuno was equally clear about what should not happen. No government subsidies.
Instead, public policy should create incentives for voluntary mergers between private parties. Not the State covering gaps with money.
He pointed to models like Hollywood studios and companies like EA, where the creative part and the business part are clearly separated — creators concentrate on making content, insulated from the brutalities of capital and commercial operation.
Artists and accountants occupy different, yet symbiotic, rooms.
That is the model the Japanese anime industry should aspire to, in his vision.
The Urgency Is Real — Not Theoretical
Profitability in anime is already falling, according to Natsuno himself — softening, not collapsing, but trending in the wrong direction. This makes structural reform urgent.
His stated ambition is for anime to someday have an economic weight comparable to the Japanese automotive sector. But as he framed it:
You can’t build a Toyota with a thousand tiny garages all competing for the same bolts.
The industry must first stop operating as an ecosystem of micro-businesses competing with each other with limited resources.
The Uncomfortable Truth About Who Benefits
Here’s the part that deserves honest scrutiny. Kadokawa Corporation is one of the giants of Japanese entertainment — publisher, anime producer, video game developer, and global content distributor.
Among its best-known properties:
- Sword Art Online
- Re:Zero
- KonoSuba
- Oshi no Ko
- Elden Ring (via subsidiary FromSoftware)
When its CEO advocates for industrial consolidation, that is not a neutral position. Kadokawa would be one of the main beneficiaries — and possibly the driving force — of any merger process in the sector.
The diagnosis might be sound. But the doctor also stands to gain handsomely from the prescribed medicine.
The Question That Has No Easy Answer
At what point does the efficiency of a consolidated system start to sand away the idiosyncratic, often brilliant edges that come from small, independent voices?
Is the unique charm of anime — its chaotic energy, its wild creative diversity — partly a product of the very fragmentation Natsuno wants to eliminate?
Leave a Comment