The infamous Mappa Studio produced numerous fan-favorite mangas and turned them into high-quality animes like Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Chainsaw Man.
Bringing up that highly anticipated fan pressure not to mess up their favorite manga. Now imagine those animators already without time to make a product the way they want to, having to then read all the fans saying the adaptation is bad, the animation sucks, etc.
While there’s no denying the quality of these animes, and kudos to the animators, Mappa still has some major production issues. They treat their animators and have work schedules that are possibly the worst out of any major anime studio.
Recently, animators at Mappa who worked on Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 episode 13 complained about how the episode was finished just mere hours before it actually aired live in Japan.
This is not normal at all and will be very detrimental in the long term.
Gojo English Dub Voice Actor Point of View on Animators Meltdown at Mappa
Kaiji Tang, a.k.a. the English voice of Gojo Satoru, tweeted against Mappa for overworking their animators. In this tweet, he stated that the animators working at Mappa delivered a masterpiece episode despite such a tight schedule for production.
He took a stand for the animator and requested Mappa to give its animators who work like superheroes some rest that they deserve. He even asked Mappa to raise their pay.
Despite a horrendous production schedule, MAPPA animators have delivered another masterpiece this week.
I think I can speak for everyone when I say please MAPPA, we can wait for greatness to give these superhuman animators the rest they deserve.
Also give them a raise.
— Kaiji Von Tang (@KaijiTang) November 16, 2023
A similar case like Mappa with another Big Studio, Madhouse
But how does yet another famous anime studio named Madhouse tie in all of this? Going back to the time period when Madhouse started the anime dominance with Classics like Monster, Death Note, Hunter x Hunter, and One Punch Man.
Basically, they got their dirty hands on the most famous and anticipated mangas in that period and wanted to revolutionize the industry by not giving other smaller Studios at that time a slight chance. But because of this incurable greed by Madhouse, guess what happened in 2015?
Overworking their staff in terrible work conditions and sometimes not even paying their staff led to Madhouse’s downfall. They shouldn’t have been animating so much anime at once, and seems like Mappa seems to be going down the same route.
What Mappa Should Do Right Now
The staff working on creating this show to be treated well. Suppose they were given the appropriate time and resources to give the show their all without being on the verge of a mental breakdown,
If the staff were in an environment where they were not being overworked or underpaid and could work at their pay to the best of their ability, the show would also look better.
The fact that this kind of mindset is a common occurrence among workers speaks not just about how horrible corporate culture is in Japan but how it is in the world at large. This is just insane.
The fact that something I’m sure they had a passion for once could be reduced to a source of stress and self-hatred is sad. Even though Mappa takes the most blame for overworking its animators, the fans complaining about animation obviously aren’t helping.
Blame the right person instead of Animators for Bad Animation!
There’s no reason people should be blamed on the animators. Almost anytime a creative product like an anime or a video game or whatnot is low quality; it’s usually never the fault of the people doing it.
All the actual work Mappa handles way too many projects. They should just expand their team of animators, allowing them to tackle every project in a satisfying fashion or delay the premiere of a new season to give the animators more time.
Like imagine they’d have delayed Jujutsu Kiasen’s Premiere to one month or two that would have made the difference, as the animators would probably be several episodes ahead.
Animators are out there crying about how they are being overworked and treated by Mappa and met with extremely harsh demands and schedules.
If the people creating a piece of media are given an environment where they can instead flourish to the best of their ability and work at their Pace, then the product they put out is also better.
If people are complaining, it’s because they want a show with such amazing potential as this to actually live up to its potential instead of floundering due to disgusting corporate demands.
So next time, instead of saying thank you, Mappa, say thank you to the incredible team working on the anime.
