why people care about anime voice actors and actresses way more than the animators?

Fmod91 said:
There is an issue with the graph - they take the average salary of all animators and compare it to the average salary of "A-List" voice actors. I would like to see what happens when you add in all the voice actors who mainly just do one off background characters or are less popular and accomplished. Or only look at the average earnings of animator superstars like Yutaka Nakamura in comparison.

Kurgo said:
Same goes with animation, you can replace animators but you can't do the same with VAs.

Missaliensan said:
Because there are lots more no-name animators ,than a-list voice actor superstars in the making.Think about the quantity of animators that can work on a single show,how are you going to be able to remember the names of all of them,save for the few stand out ones than go on to acquire a higher position anyways?
This is different than a voice actor which have more of an opportuinity to be defined by their style through their voice acting,therefore they are more recognizable.

deg said:

like i said it does not matter since if you compare the A-List directors and chief animators salaries compared to A-List seiyuus then the income inequality is still extreme

but here look at the Key Animator salary here https://kotaku.com/average-anime-industry-salaries-get-depressing-1774852881

Fmod91 said:


Being the chief animator on a series is not the same as being an "A-list" chief animator, same with directors. Someone like Hosoda or Shinkai is going to make way more money than someone with one TV anime on his resume, or with a resume full of financial failures. The graph only shows the average earnings of everyone in those positions, it doesn't make the same kind of popularity/prominence distinction it does for seiyuus, where only the top of the pile get counted. I don't even doubt that the conclusion of the data is generally correct( probably less extreme than suggested though), but its not good data.

fantaghost said:
Why do people care more about actors than production staff and makeup artists in movies?

I don't get it guys? Why is the world like this??

fantaghost said:
Why do people care more about actors than production staff and makeup artists in movies?

I don't get it guys? Why is the world like this??

deg said:

dude wut? chief animation director (or chief animator or basically the character designer) is what im talking about and there is only 1 person for that on each series

deg said:

you mention Yutaka Nakamura he is a Key Animator but a Ace Key Animator and you think he will suddenly have triple to quadruple of wage compared to an average Key Animator? heck you think he will have more income than a Series Director or even a Chief Animation Director? lol and worse have better wage than a A-List seiyuu?

Fmod91 said:


That doesn't make someone "A-list", which is a denotation of popularity/prominence. There are some chief animators who are "A-list" and some who are not. Being an "A-List" Seiyuu doesn't denote being the only "A-List" Seiyuu on a project, you can have multiple, so you can't use the uniqueness of the chief animator as means to make them comparable to an "A-List" Seiyuu.



I'm not making that claim, I'm explaining that that is the data set we need access to so to rationally support your claim.

deg said:
@Ferien

yep good point although this situation is extreme there in the anime industry and we more care about anime here on MAL

@Short_Circut

i cannot wait for this This AI Makes "Audio Deepfakes" https://youtu.be/VQgYPv8tb6A

as for this is A-List voice seiyuu i reckon most animators are still lower paid than the lowest paid seiyuus

you have a point that animators are like hundreds to thousands for just 1 anime show compared to like 10-20 seiyuus and that is the reason why i think 3DCG anime is the future

While a TV anime usually takes up to 100 artists to be created, if you’re working with computer graphics it takes just about 20.
If you manage to lower the personnel costs, you can increase salaries. In 3DCG, a single person is responsible for multiple tasks and this means wages are also higher.
https://www.pixivision.net/en/a/3122

that excuses the income inequality but not really since even directors and chief animation directors are severely paid less than this seiyuus even comparing a A-List seiyuu to a A-List director

deg said:


still do most anime today have at lest 1-2 A-List seiyuu anyway? heck even 1 A-List seiyuu has way far more wage than all the so called A-List animators/director i reckon, and like i said if your claim that A-List animators and directors are paid more than an A-List seiyuu then that will be big news already

EDIT:

>For other key animators, yes, most likely, that is how capitalism works

ok i agree that Yutaka Nakamura being an ace key animator will be paid higher than average key animators but damn not all key animators are listed on the credits if i remember right they only list the A-List key animators most of the time on the ending credit scenes but i can be wrong here

Fmod91 said:


The point is that when you use "A-List" seiyuu averages vs the general average of other professions your numbers will get skewed, since being "A-List" means you are more in demand than the norm, and can demand more money for your labor than average. I don't have any opinion on whether or not Hosoda or Nakamura are getting paid more than some "A-list" seiyuu is. But we either need to widen the scope of seiyuus to all seiyuus and not just "A-list" ones, or tighten the scope of the other professions to just "A-List" ones so we can get accurate data. Also, royalties are only mentioned in the Seiyuus case, but no one else's - total earning vs salary should be differentiated as well to get a clearer picture.

Ferien said:
For the same reasons people care more about the actors and actresses instead of the directors, cinematographers, editors, decorators, post-production team and so on in live action productions: because the average consumer only cares about the people they watch and/or hear in front of the cameras.

Fiction-Lord said:
I do care more about the voice actors. I would even watch a show if there's a VA I like, giving voice to any character in the show.
Same case with the production studios but not with the animators, most likely because I don't hear their names enough. Voice actors got radio shows, often promotes anime at different events. I see them all the time.

deg said:


i bet there are more animators than seiyuus overall though so that statistics will not change much
like the proportion for each anime episode maybe 100 animators is to 20 seiyuus

also i never heard of any animator get royalties except directors when it comes to original anime that they made but for anime adaptations then nah even directors have no royalties for that since the royalties for anime adaptations goes to the original authors but if you can provide me an evidence like source link for that then do share it here

EDIT:

Revenues from international licensing, and pretty much every other way an anime can make money, don't filter down to the people paid by the animation studio. It DOES directly pay a few prominent members of the staff, such as the original creator, the director, and the head writer, who all enjoy royalty payments. https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2018-02-21/.128068

Fmod91 said:


There is no evidence that the graph was taking averages from a proportional representation based on how many of each group work on an episode of anime. More likely they took x number of each and averaged them out, which is the normal way to do it. As opposed to taking x data points from animators and x divided by 5 from seiyuus like your claim would suggest.

If we only look at A-list then that vast majority who are lower earners will not be counted, and the number will increase for animators, if we only look at the average then the high earnings of A-list seiyuus will be be drowned out by the mass majority of lower earners, so the average will decrease. Once we see to which degree this happens, either way we do it, we can have accurate data. Total earnings vs salary is important as well, not because I think you are missing out on animators royalties, but because it tells us what money is coming directly from working on anime, vs other work external to working on anime. And it identifies actual inequalities if there are any.

Pullman said:
Because only a small fraction of anime fans are actually into animation itself.

I'd also say that the whole seiyuu and idol fandom gets more people into anime, to pour money into anime, at least in Japan. Anime/animation is 'just' the medium through which people connect with creators and their stories and (voice) actors and their performances and personalities. They don't come to watch 'animation' they come to watch specific stories or specific performances.

So same reason why actors and directors get more fame, recognition and money than editors or cameramen or even writers in movies and the likes.

actuallyaadhi said:
How is manga just as popular as anime if that's the case?

TheKawaiiToon said:
I'll just give out a simple answer and say that first of all. VA's are the easiest to distinguish when it comes to anime. In fact, I could say the same thing with actors in film and tv as a whole.

Hence why people care more about the VA's more so than the animators.

I can fully understand why they're at the lowest end of the stats that the OP posted. But damn, as a Filipino artist who loves animation with a passion, I find it a little disappointing.

actuallyaadhi said:
Many voice actors don't become "A-list".

Manaban said:
Because anime animation is generally shit. There's exceptions, of course, but for the most part it's defined by budget-saving techniques and generally subpar movement on a holistic level, at *best* focusing on isolating scenes of particular importance that being well-animated would benefit and then focusing resources and production on those while being substandard elsewhere. And that's not even an ubiquitous aspect of anime animation.

It's always focused primarily on things like the characters, premises, storytelling, et cetera. The animation in anime is more a vessel for these things than it is the selling point. It can visualize a lot of the outlandish premises and characterization, but it doesn't need to move very well to do that. Blame Tezuka.

So, audiences that enjoy a medium that will generally prioritize things like this are a lot more likely to care about the folk who act out the characters they adore so much than the person drawing them. Because dialogue and interaction and things like that are generally more important to the audience than how it's moving when it comes to anime. If they wanted well-animated works, most of the medium is going to put them off.

So yeah. They're going to be the money-makers. And it's as much due to the production structure and priorities with anime as anything else. Undercutting that to just ramble about idol otaku bullshit is silly.


Because manga is an entirely different medium with entirely different ways of being created and entirely different ways of communicating with an audience?

That *might* have something to do with manga being popular as well? Being a different fucking demand that's being filled and not just one-in-the-same as anime?

actuallyaadhi said:
That doesn't make sense. The vast majority of anime are based on some manga and often times anime is meant as an advertisement to it's manga. they're not completely different. Why would they intend anime as a manga advert if they're goal is to pull in seiyuu otakus?

Manaban said:

It does make sense. You read a manga. You watch an anime. Every difference stems from how the audience will be interacting with the work. Things like guiding the reader's eyes through art and word layout to make it flow better don't matter in anime. Using page turns to accent an action shot or scary moment doesn't matter in anime. How well something is voice acted doesn't matter in manga. How it uses certain colors to create an atmosphere doesn't matter in manga. It goes on.

The story could be perfectly the same. The vessel being used to communicate it is totally different, though. That's going to change how it's created and how the audience interacts with it. The mode of communication has entirely changed.

It's really that easy.

actuallyaadhi said:
That wasn't my main argument but okay

actuallyaadhi said:
I was talking about the difference in fanbase and not about the artistic difference in anime and manga.