Since the topic of anime's overproduction problem is hot again, I want to share a few thoughts on the nature of the pb, and some ways we can try to understand what's going on. A thread

The first thing is, numbers. We've all seen some of those chart flying around essentially saying that more anime is produced now than it has ever been. My intention is not to disprove these numbers, but we should get some perspective

First is, how is the chart made? Do you only include TV anime, or other formats? In the realm of TV anime, do you only account for newly airing shows or do you also include continuing series?
And the other thing is a subject I've discussed in length with @fmod91:

What matters may not be the raw number of airing TV series, but the total amount of time of animation produced
Bc indeed, we're witnessing a peak in the number of TV anime per year rn - but most of these shows are very short, so the total amount of time produced...

becomes much lower when you take that into consideration
This becomes important when you have a comparative approach: the mid-2000's also represented a peak in number of TV series, but these series were much longer: usually 2 cours, plus long-running shows, which were more common

This means that, in terms of the raw amount of time of animation produced per year, the 2000's might have known a bigger "surproduction" pb than we know today. Or at least, bc I don't have the numbers, an equivalent one

The conclusion to that basically is: speaking in raw numbers, overproduction might not actually be the pb. But then what is? And that's what we should be focusing on and investigating, rather than just focus on numbers - bc numbers, by themselves, mean nothing

I don't have answers to what is actually the pb, bc I don't know in that much detail how the industry works, and what's the systemic pb at play here. But there have definitely been trends that might explain some things. I'll try to just focus on 2 I kinda know about

The first, you have probably heard of if you've been looking the least bit into the business side of anime: that's the production committee system. I won't go over the full history of the thing or how it works in detail, but you probably know where I'm going:

This system, which became prominent around the 90's, effectively ensures that little profit actually goes to anime studios, which are therefore on the constant verge of financial collapse
But the thing is, that's an old pb. So again: what changed in the last 5 years...

for the pb to become so dramatic? Is it just that the seeds of disaster have accumulated for years and they only come to a head now? I have no idea
The other thing I'd like to mention is also kinda old, though I don't have the precise chronology of it. It's more animators-focused

I'll be short there too, but until *at least* the mid 90's, anime's production model worked thanks to outsourcing studios. That is, little structures, ranging from 4 or 5 people to a few dozen, that worked on rotation on TV shows (see my piece on Graviton for an example of that)

This system was so efficient, bc on the aesthetic side, it allowed for visual diversity (different teams w/ different approaches animated different episodes), and on the human one, it enabled for worker organization and the transmission of skills

To take Kanada's example (always him), you had him as the leader of his studio, either as main KA or AD on episodes. The less experienced members of the studio would then do KA or 2nd KA under him, and that's how they learnt the craft. Basically this was hands-on teaching

Keep in mind that often, these studios were just informal collectives of freelancers. Today, we often blame the general reliance of the industry on freelancing for the hard working conditions of animators. But that's not quite true: freelancing has *always* been there

The pb is that, for whatever reason, this net of outsourcing studios/freelancer collectives has almost completely disappeared. I don't know when, I don't know why
But the industry itself hasn't adapted to this change: it still expects animators to be taught by someone

But this someone has essentially disappeared with outsourcing studios
A possible reason for that is the development of animation schools throughout the 80's, and the rise of webgen, self-taught animators since the 00's. But idk if that's really convincing as a systemic answer

Let me end this thread by reiterating the questions: what has changed is less the basic functioning of the industry (overproduction, freelancing), but the structures that enabled that functioning to work in the first place. But why and how have these structures disappeared?

*something* has to have happened in the last 15 years. And that's what we should be questioning, rather than just invoking numbers that in the end don't mean anything
END OF THREAD