Otaku USA unveiled the second part of their interview with Terumi Nishii, a character designer and animation director who revealed that the overseas companies investing in anime have done little to solve the issues of the anime industry.

Terumi Nishii, who has worked on shows such as Pokemon, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond Is Unbreakable, and One Piece, cited in the first part of the interview that staff problems, outsourcing, and shorter schedules were a few of the issues with the industry, she has also provided her opinion regarding what can be done to fix these problems:

We’ve talked about the problems facing the anime industry. What are some of things that can be done to help it? Terumi Nishii: Currently, I am working at a company that is trying to hire talented artists as actual employees (not contractors) and is teaching them digital methods to make Japanese-style anime using technology. We’re starting to see some anime come out now that was made using CGI but it looks like old hand-drawn 2D style, so I believe there could be a solution using both methods to create a hybrid. Terumi Nishii: There are advantages and disadvantages for making anime with either CGI or 2D, but I think there are more advantages if we move toward a digital process. There is a lot of waste when you make anime using the old analog method. So I’m trying to figure out how to merge the two styles together so that viewers can still enjoy Japanese-style anime while taking advantage of technology to make it a more efficient process.

Nishii also mentioned that purchasing an artist’s doujinshi or supporting their Pixiv FANBOX is a great way to directly aid them:

What can anime fans do to help people working in the industry? Terumi Nishii: I get this question a lot from anime fans in Japan. They say things like, “We buy lots of anime goods, but the money never gets to the creators and they are still struggling. What can we do?” The easiest and most popular solution now is to go to a fan event like Comiket and buy dojinshi (a self-published book) direct from an animator working on your favorite show. When you do that, your money goes directly to them. Then there are things like Pixiv FANBOX, which is a bit like Patreon. I have a Patreon account, too, but it’s a little bit hard for me to manage because I have to do everything in English and I don’t know how to communicate so well with overseas fans. But I guess that’s one method for international fans to support animators that are working on projects that they like.

It seems overseas companies who invest in anime barely have an effect:

What about overseas companies who are heavily investing in anime? Terumi Nishii: We have not felt the effects at all. You often hear about big budgets going toward anime, but I don’t feel like a lot of that money is being spent on great artists. Payment is another challenge. Because of the way that payments are made to the industry, they may be partial payments or it takes a while for payment to happen. When a project is commissioned they say, “Okay make 12 episodes. We will start paying you after you complete 12 episodes.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing but it’s not the way that anime has normally been made in the past, so that might be affecting the way that budgets are spent now. It’s a new process. Nobody is really used to making anime this way so it might be difficult to manage it. A good way to do it would be if small teams could make the entire production in-house, without outsourcing, like Mecha Ude. Utilizing small teams that do high-quality work without a bunch of checkers in between would be one way to increase efficiency. But there’s not a good training process to get animators to the level where they don’t need a bunch of quality control. What’s happening now is that someone makes a first cut, then a second cut, and then the animation is brushed up and finalized. The person who does the brushup should be the person doing the animating from the very beginning. The problem is we don’t have those kinds of highly skilled people because there isn’t a good training process and the industry doesn’t pay the good artists enough. If people who can produce high-quality animation were being paid correctly then you would see more people stick around.

Those interested in the first part of the interview can read it online now.