November 2016 Interview 11

H: Today's producers don't take responsibility after they leave a company.
Producers in the 70s were always the ones who stood out and made their opinions. "I want to make it like this, so I made it like this!"
Today's producers give me a huge amount of instructions and requests, but they don't take responsibility for it until later, and they keep quiet about things that are inconvenient for them.
So it's all the director's fault.
In private, they're all nice people, though.
But they know all the weaknesses of the site. I think they studied the weaknesses of the site's claims very well.

-So they move in the direction of "If the schedule is behind, let's outsource the work entirely overseas."

H: Yes. The managers of small and medium-sized enterprises, who are subcontractors on the site, can't say anything to the big companies.

The managers of small and medium-sized enterprises are people who have lived through the old anime scene, and they are all lone wolves, like wanderers, and are interesting people.

-They all have their own heroic tales from the past.

H: Yes, they are the old masters, and they were once artists themselves, so it's hard to paint and run a small business at the same time.

There was a time when we all got together as the "アニメーション事業者協会/Animation Managers Association"
(a gathering of small animation business managers).

Small business owners always have to take on work to keep their small companies running, so it seemed like it was tough for everyone.

In the past, our multiple labor unions, the Animation Business Association, and voice actors would meet about twice a month to hold meetings.
But the small business owners and workers are all busy.
In the end, it just became a meeting to exchange information.
I don't participate anymore, but I wonder if they're still active?

(*The voice actors were the most energetic at the time. So they were dissatisfied with the animators and small business owners, saying, "Why don't you hold more demonstrations? Why don't you organize rallies?" But the animators and small business owners were all tired from working long hours without sleep.)

-So the last time voice actors got their rights expanded was in 1991, at the Ginza Anime Demonstration?

H: 1991.

-Was the アニメーション事業者協会/Animation Management Association also involved around this time?

H: Yes. That was when things were at their peak.
The number of anime titles was increasing, we were short on manpower, schedules were not being kept up to date, and there were many cases of drawings not being completed at the time of dubbing.
People who were not from labor unions, such as Yasuji Mori (veteran animator), also signed up to support us.

-There is also an organization called the Animation Joint Struggle Conference. Was it active around that time?

H: The 「アニメーション共闘会議/Animation Joint Struggle Conference」 (Toei Doga Labor Union, Tokyo Movie Labor Union, Eisanro) has been active since the 1970s.

There is another organization called the 映画演劇共闘会議/Eien Kyoto/ Movies and Theatre Joint Struggle Conference. It has been active since the 1960s and has a long history.

I thought that the positions of these labor unions would be difficult for the general public to understand, so I once made a complete relationship diagram. It's lost somewhere now and I can't find it.
But I think that such easy-to-understand explanatory diagrams are necessary.

-What happened to each labor union organization after that?

H: They are aging and not being passed on to the younger generation.
Eisanro is aging. No new people are joining any of the labor unions.
Oh, and (the Eien Kyoto) created the Anime Union along the way. This was around the late 1980s.

-What kind of position does it have?

H: Eisanro originally wanted to organize freelancers, but it was hard to gather people.
Everyone saw Eisanro as being rather political.
So Eien Kyoto tried to organize freelancers themselves, and that's how the Anime Union came about.
But Eien Kyoto and Eisanro are not in conflict, they're in a cooperative relationship.
But their policies were slightly different.

Eisanro is also aging, and many of its elderly members have passed away.
So the chairman of Eien Kyoto wanted to absorb Eisanro.
But the members of Eisanro, including myself, have refused the idea of ​​absorbing them because our policies are different.

This is just my personal opinion, but if film companies keep absorbing other companies, eventually it will become unclear which companies they came from.

-I heard that Toei Doga's Director Sato (*Sailor Moon director) was the chairman of the -Animation Joint Struggle Council towards the end.

H: That may be true. The Toei Doga Labor Union was the most well-organized.