for the fans anime is an escape from stress ironically you wouldn't believe
what creators are going through to make that anime here we are in akihabara again
and i'm about to get schooled in anime lesson number one it's almost impossible to get in
but i know an american guy who beat the odds and made it there he is hello henry nice to meet you
my name's henry thurlow i'm originally from new york i've been
living in japan for over 10 years now and i work in the japanese anime industry
at the first studio i worked at it was one drawing one dollar in my giant 17-hour day i earned 17 dollars
henry now has a good salary and good working hours at one of japan's most prestigious
animation studios but before entering this company years ago he had to work extremely hard to get the
experience and qualifications to land this dream job after all he's been through and
the reputation that this notorious industry has i have to ask him was it all worth it
for most of the animators and i know you'll think i'm crazy saying this but it really isn't a job
i don't consider it i already think you're crazy henry i already think you're crazy i am well but i
guess i am like i am but but uh but i'm crazy in a way that i embrace and i'm proud of and i wouldn't
have it any other way absolute world-class animation how do we do it let's work for
barely any money morning until night for five straight months hey team you want to do this
you want to amaze the world with this now no one here is going to barely earn anything but do you
want to shock the world hell yeah we want to shock the world henry is one of the only americans to
make it into this industry let alone make it big so i had to ask him how did he even start
if you really want to work an anime it's not that it's impossible it's just that not many
people do what is necessary to make it happen which is you might have to move to the other
side of the planet learn a completely different language interview in a different language then
get the competitive job and then start at the bottom again so exactly it's a giant list of very
difficult things that simply most people aren't willing to do and maybe because they're smart
but but to go back to like when i was trying to get in so no one wanted to hire the foreigner
it was i mean it's really kind of a horror story like i don't want to
take credit for it but because of me and a few other people who did initially get jobs
in the animation industry as foreigners the people working out here kind of changed a little
bit and they became a little bit more open to well maybe if they're good animators they can
still participate even if they're not japanese you were the only american for sure americans are
super american there's literally only two or three americans in the whole industry and i was working
is the other one who's my friend who i was working with for a whole bunch of years
just that one interview ended with well okay can you start next month and then i was like
that's the word i've been waiting to hear right and and once you're in then you're in
before entering the industry i would go around tokyo into different uh like figure drawing
sessions and i would just keep practicing on making my portfolio better and better
there are days where i'm like pulling all-nighters and stuff and i'm like
i want to be sleeping i want to be home at the end of the day of course i'm not going to stop because
i know in my heart i'm an animator i got to finish this and then at the
end i'm going to feel super proud that i did and then jump onto my next project
so uh the west i think hears about the japanese work ethic and is shocked and appalled constantly
oh my god henry went through that that's so crazy japan needs to change that how dare japan
they're taking advantage of people etc etc we demand right is kind of the mind frame
now you're working at a great studio that tons of people would love to get into and they give you
the weekends off so you can actually have a life you can have a personal life Toei Animation man and
really like i'm not i'm not uh not just hyping them up because i work there like legitimately
they earn all the hype it really is like it is the dream job at the moment i just knew since
uh first grade that's the thing i could do every single day forever and i would feel most fulfilled
henry compares being at the top of the anime industry to being an olympic athlete where
you can perform seemingly impossible tasks with extreme speed and efficiency however
as a new animator at a small studio you don't yet have the experience and skills to drastically
reduce your working hours and produce drawings efficiently so the beginning is quite rough
i just thought this was all click bait stuff i'm looking at these youtube videos doing some
research like ah you guys just did this for the shock factor you just wanted the views and
i saw this one and the sad truth is that being a manga writer is essentially voluntary enslavement
non-stop work little sleep malnutrition and stress this is laying it on thick or is this for real
well it's interesting because it's not a hundred percent wrong how about this
she's making like 300 dollars in the beginning three hundred dollars a month
that's better than me definitely better than me she's better that just means she's a better
animator than me i give her props that's good i was working at one of the harshest
absolute harshest in between studios in the whole country i earned
one dollar per drawing oh man and and i could only do about 10 drawings per day and that's
even with a 10-hour day it was about an hour for drawing there are some people that are prodigies
right and i need to accept that too that's a hard field for me to swallow there are some people that
can do a better job than me and make many less hours than me so they do get three day weekends
just because they can finish by thursday what would take me through sunday
Is this normal?
Well, so ok especially now as an employee of Toei Animation
and all my opinions are my own i am not a representative all of that but
what she's talking about is in between animators and and that really is the
most problematic position in the industry to be honest and i don't know how to fix it because
japanese anime is still hand drawn it's not done traditionally it's not done computerized but
every individual drawing would have to be a lot of money right um right but that's not in the budget
the reason that honestly anime is so high quality it's because you have a whole bunch of people
working super hard way harder than to be honest the budget would even allow and if after that work
day they only earn 20 they're like you know what but i just worked on a project that's going to
be world class animation that's my life that's my pride do you realize that america produces almost
no 2d animation because of this exact problem like to get good quality the price would be ridiculous
even the western industry like needs it absolutely needs it would not be able to breathe without
the asian industry that works the way that i just described so even the simpsons even spongebob
squarepants you think oh spongebob that's an american cartoon is it it's storyboarded
and written in the west maybe but uh no the whole thing's animated here under the work ethic i just
said right in japan um it's like well no i want this crazy additional action sequence well we
don't have the budget or the time for it well then all of us will just work really hard just to do it
right um wow some of this i would say it's probably true to be honest because i don't want to take
anything away from any of the artists that have to go through this really harsh stuff but but all i
want people to just keep going back to is we're all here though because we want to be obviously
just coming at it from the western perspective obviously it's ridiculous to get paid so little
17 hours a day doing it so obviously that's crazy that's ridiculous they're nuts here right to to
think that that's normal and sustainable uh some some things need to be rethought in this industry
absolutely i don't like when the western animators comment like uh they're doing it totally wrong or
like everything needs to change they need to pay their animators x amount and and equate it to like
the the dollar amounts and the work hours from the west i'm on your guys side in the sense that
of course i want animators to live good lives and i want to live good lives and be paid well
but if they got exactly what they were asking for my boss would have to come over to me and
be like no you need to leave you can't do that extra work because of contractual blah blah blah
and i go home kind of pissed like i wanted to work on that one that's the show i work on now
oh really oh oh one piece here we go and who's your favorite to draw actually that guy in the
back when he's transformed into a dragon i like drawing like uh monsters and stuff like that so
uh yeah when that guy's transformed it's pretty fun how long has one piece been like a series
years and years and years it's at a hundred volumes of the manga wow and then episode
1000 is going to be airing pretty soon you don't draw the manga though you just do the anime yeah
exactly that's what i thought yeah this is one piece too wow funny thing is um i wanted to be
an artist when i was younger i was gonna go to art school i did a lot of ap art classes so i did
fine art and i got out of it i didn't go to art school i decided to go to business school because
it is just uh pretty rough and you have to work so many hours it was too rough i was like i can
make way more money and work a lot less hard if i go into the business world it's a mix it's a
mix right because certainly they shouldn't get too much work and yes there have been times and
i've seen where people just get a giant stack of work on their desk and it's like finish this
by friday and like if that's the case like how are you gonna finish that without working
you know like uh 20-hour days right so that there are situations where you're kind of forced
into that and that's wrong i think right there shouldn't be that much work piled on individual
people so are you ever going to go back to america that's the big question do you ever
No! No? That was so fast.
That was the easiest answer ever.
Well, because American still doesn't produce the animation i want my life is all about this
career the only thing that could bring me back is some art project some series or film that is so
artistically amazing and impressive to me that i feel like even if i have to leave japan i have to
be a part of that unbelievable project so you're gonna do this until you retire there is no retirement
There is no retirement?
There's just working on this.
But again like this is my hobby like even if i'm you know 93 years old like why wouldn't i pull that
out and draw right so for me it's like i have the same hobby but as opposed to just drawing in the
sketchbook i get to draw for something millions of people are going to say right it's awesome
well thank you henry and uh yeah now i wanna i might watch one piece
just because I'll tell you what i'll give you a recommendation of
a few one-piece movies i got some work to do oh man i'm gonna become an otaku