Animation Studio Artland Seeks Debt Consolidation

by arsonal
Jul 9, 2017 10:45 PM | 36 Comments

Animation Studio Artland Inc. announced on Friday that it has hired a lawyer to assist the company with consolidation of its corporate debt, which stood at 298.84 million yen as of December 2016.

In an interview with credit reporting agency Tokyo Shoko Research, Artland president Kuniharu Okano denies reports that the company has suspended its business operations. According to Okano, Artland sent a notice to its business partners on Tuesday that it is seeking to consolidate its debts with the help of Tokyo-based corporate attorney Satoshi Kaji.

Artland was originally founded in 1978 by the late animator Noboru Ishiguro. In 2006, it became a subsidiary company of Marvelous Entertainment, but later spun off Animation Studio Artland Inc. in 2010 in a management buyout. The original Artland entity was retained by Marvelous as a rights holding company and ceased to exist in 2015 when its operations were absorbed for efficiency purposes.

Following a successful 2014, when the studio produced new installments of the Mushishi anime and assisted with the production of Love Live! School Idol Project 2nd Season, annual revenue stood at 289.74 million yen as of November 2015 according to Tokyo Shoko Research. However, annual revenue as of November 2016 fell to 81.36 million yen with a recorded deficit of 93.02 million yen. Teikoku Databank reports that 90 percent of Artland's operating expenses come from outsourcing costs.

Okano said he has not ruled out the possibility of civil rehabilitation, Japan's equivalent of bankruptcy protection, which allows a company's management and its debtors to draft a reconstruction plan without entering liquidation. Okano has also received offers for private acquisition by other companies but has not decided whether or not to pursue that route.

Source: Tokyo Shoko Research, Teikoku Databank

News submitted by AIDSKrillex

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20 of 36 Comments Recent Comments

@arsonal previous peak capacity...!?

May 16, 2:20 AM by Bhanu_LAW_196K1A

VyseLegendaire said:
That's what happens when anime is made 90% by foreign slaves in SE Asia.

yes accept it after COVID most of the animes are done by overseas animators and they suck

Jun 20, 2023 10:56 AM by Bhanu_LAW_196K1A

bigivelfhq said:

ichii_1 said:
Aren't they owned by Haoliners? and how do you add up debt with outsourcing, what a scam.

Is not scam, payments arent made at the moment the deal is made, but it has a period of time of around 6 to 12 months, in short terms liabilities. Possibly they though they would get the money in that period of time but it not ended being the case.

It is hard to recover from that deficit, sadly the industry, in general, isn't going well and it is evident due to all the economical changes around.

Jul 12, 2017 7:52 PM by Pipe

FIGHTO ARTLANDO!

Jul 12, 2017 9:41 AM by lighthalzen-kun

ichii_1 said:
Aren't they owned by Haoliners? and how do you add up debt with outsourcing, what a scam.

Jul 11, 2017 12:55 AM by bigivelfhq

jc9622 said:

bigivelfhq said:

You're wrong. The people that receive better in average are from Toei Animation. KyoAni and Sunrise never revealed how much their people receive, so this rumours that they receive so well and are one of the better cases in the industry is bullocks.

It's not a rumor...Kyoto Animation's staff are paid well but that's all they said. You're right, they never revealed their exact numbers but the fact that KyoAni rarely relies on outsourcing and does all of their work in-house should tell you that they're doing a good job for themselves. Outsourcing and hiring freelancers are a cheap alternative to hiring animators that will work full time for your studio and KyoAni rarely relies on these methods.

Plus, they're almost always in the production committee so whatever they earn through BD sales and other revenue means goes to them instead of producers paying them like dirt shit. For example, Studio Actas only got the money from the production committee to spend on their project for GuP Film but most of the revenue that the film earned did not go towards Actas since they're not on the committee.

While for Kyoto Animation we only have the 'employees earn well', we have the numbers for Toei Animation. Toei also built an entire subsidiary company overseas, it didn't just outsourced work. And it has a union not only for their workers, but also for their freelancers.

Also Toei rarely does production committes, but partnerships with 1 or 2 other companies and so receives a lot more from each work

You shouldnt see production committe has paiyng bad the contracted animation company,because it isn't, and the value is agreed and decided by both parts. The contract is not a special one, but in fact a normal contract between two entities.
Is like you have a home beer maker and you need containers and so you pay a 3rd party for those, not for a percentage of every beer you make.

Jul 11, 2017 12:48 AM by bigivelfhq

That's what happens when anime is made 90% by foreign slaves in SE Asia.

Jul 10, 2017 8:08 PM by VyseLegendaire

bigivelfhq said:

GD1551 said:

If there is a shortage (I don't know because I haven't looked into that) is it really a surprise? From what I gather, anyone not in Sunrise or KyoAni gets paid dogshit and works more than a slave.

Jul 10, 2017 5:22 PM by jc9622

Aren't they owned by Haoliners? and how do you add up debt with outsourcing, what a scam.

Jul 10, 2017 1:36 PM by ichii_1

bigivelfhq said:

GD1551 said:

If there is a shortage (I don't know because I haven't looked into that) is it really a surprise? From what I gather, anyone not in Sunrise or KyoAni gets paid dogshit and works more than a slave.

In the case of at least KyoAni, their workers are salaried.. that alone means they are making way more than the average animator.

Jul 10, 2017 9:45 AM by GD1551

GD1551 said:

Hoppy said:

Yes. The 2016 industry report published by the Association of Japanese Animations shows what this means. Production capacity of TV anime actually declined between 2014 and 2015 and is not likely to return to its previous peak capacity.

Well there isn't a lot of good kids anime these days, which explains why kids anime have been in decline, you basically have your handful of shounen, a few primetime magical girl/idol anime (Precure, Aikatsu, Pripara, and Rilu Rilu Fairlu), and the super long running family anime (Doraemon and Sazae-san) that are good.

If there is a shortage (I don't know because I haven't looked into that) is it really a surprise? From what I gather, anyone not in Sunrise or KyoAni gets paid dogshit and works more than a slave.

Jul 10, 2017 8:52 AM by bigivelfhq

Hoppy said:

arsonal said:

Yes. The 2016 industry report published by the Association of Japanese Animations shows what this means. Production capacity of TV anime actually declined between 2014 and 2015 and is not likely to return to its previous peak capacity.

Well there isn't a lot of good kids anime these days, which explains why kids anime have been in decline, you basically have your handful of shounen, a few primetime magical girl/idol anime (Precure, Aikatsu, Pripara, and Rilu Rilu Fairlu), and the super long running family anime (Doraemon and Sazae-san) that are good.

What are you talking about? just OLM has 12 kid anime series right now. Toei Animation has 6 series, you can say only 5 of those are for kids, but still. Bandai Namco Pictures(the Sunrise kid and family section) with 4 series. You have TMS with around 3, Gallop with 1(Yu-Gi-Oh). Than you have Eiken with Sazae-san, Nippon Animation with Chibi Maruko-chan, Shin-Ei Animation with Doraemon and Shin-chan, and many others.

For the ones I talked about it makes 29 series. How there isn't many good kids anime these days? Right now is probably the period or one of the periods with more kids series out there.
Please don't conflate huge number of late-night anime with the size of the kid anime, that is an horrible and wrong metric.

Jul 10, 2017 8:50 AM by bigivelfhq

They changed a lot after producing Mushishi in 2006 (the same year they became a subsidiary company of Marvelous coincidentally). From LotGH and Macross to Demon King and Nanatsu no Taizai. Haven't seen a studio with a more drastic identity shift.

Jul 10, 2017 8:39 AM by Skittles

If there is a shortage (I don't know because I haven't looked into that) is it really a surprise? From what I gather, anyone not in Sunrise or KyoAni gets paid dogshit and works more than a slave.

Jul 10, 2017 8:02 AM by GD1551

arsonal said:

j0x said:
is the animators shortage really a big crisis there in the anime industry?

Jul 10, 2017 7:40 AM by Hoppy

Looking at their database listings I'm not surprised at all. Other than Macross it's all pretty bad and/or unpopular.

Jul 10, 2017 7:25 AM by GD1551

mehmehperson said:
RIP ):

Thank you for Sin: nanatsu no taizai

Atleast thier Twitter account is still up: https://twitter.com/artland_info

There is still hope for The seven mortal sins to atleast finish. Still need those last 2 episodes.

"Last 2"? Episode 11 is already out. Episode 12 only in the 29th though. But given how the studio is in such a crisis, I think we should be happy that we are getting the last episode at all.

Jul 10, 2017 6:48 AM by JGChaves

I hope that they can still be around, they animated hitman reborn, and I hope that they can one day do a remake of Reborn

Jul 10, 2017 6:38 AM by NG_Chloe

RIP ):

Thank you for Sin: nanatsu no taizai

Atleast thier Twitter account is still up: https://twitter.com/artland_info

There is still hope for The seven mortal sins to atleast finish. Still need those last 2 episodes.

Jul 10, 2017 6:26 AM by Old_School_Akira

arsonal said:

AIDSKrillex said:
Can Artland just do a merger with an another company? They already did that one time

See the last sentence.

good for them. I hope they will still survive. They really need to change their business model though.

Jul 10, 2017 5:26 AM by Diginarcissa

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