Of course, having said so much, it doesn't mean that Fuso's animation talent training situation is really worry-free.

There are domestic problems in the country, and Fuso also has their own situation.

From the birth of Fusang's first animation "The Famous Knife in the Cave" in 1917 to the rebirth of Zhou Fangyuan, Fuso animation has passed its 101st anniversary.

In 1963, a "Astro Boy" opened the era of Fuso TV animation, and then TV animation works began to emerge in a blowout. According to the Fuso Animation Association's "Animation Industry Report 2016", 108 new animation groups were added in 2015, reaching the highest number in previous years. The number of animation groups is increasing year by year, which means that the demand for animation talents is gradually increasing.

Many people don't know that the cultivation of animation talents has always been the biggest problem facing the Fuso animation industry.

According to the "2015 Fuso Animation Practitioners Survey Report" released by the Fuso Animation Production and Performance Association, the main channels for Fuso animators to acquire professional skills are as follows: employment in animation production companies, enrollment in technical schools or training centers, college or junior college animation majors, and self-taught.

In addition, in addition to specialized animation professional education institutions, various non-governmental organizations and individuals also hold related animation talent training activities.

For example, the Fuso Young Animator Development Program, which has been running since 2010, was commissioned by the Fuso Agency for Cultural Affairs to the Fuso Animation Production and Performance Association (hosted by JAniCA as a group organized by Fuso animators). The campaign is aimed at young animators with little experience, including "Project A", "Anime Future" and "Anime Tamago", which will be selected for the best animated short films to be released in theaters or on television. In addition, there are lectures held by individuals and groups to disseminate animation expertise.

In this way, there are many ways to cultivate animation talents, but why is the Fuso animation industry still experiencing a talent crisis every year?

Quite simply, in fact, there is no guarantee for the cultivation and employment of talents in the Fuso animation industry, and there are big problems with such a structure, which will also lead to various problems.

Before the 80s of the 20th century, Fuso animation talents were basically a master-apprentice training method of learning while working, but with the development of the times, the backbone animation production personnel were overwhelmed by more and more animation projects, and the work schedule was full, and there was basically no time to lead newcomers. The animation character of "The Prince of Tennis", Shinji Ishii, once said in an interview with the media that he has to be busy cultivating newcomers while working, and he has a great burden. Although I was in charge of training employees, I didn't get more financial subsidies from the company, so I basically did it in the form of volunteers.

However, it is widely accepted in the industry that it is still possible to teach yourself to become an animator on your own.

For example, Makoto Shinkai's first trial work "She and Her Cat" was created independently based on years of self-taught animation production experience. You must know that in Fuso, the educational requirements for animation creators are often not high, as long as there is enough strength and talent, it is completely possible to be self-taught. Of course, you also have to be quite conscious, if you just want to become a professional animator with a little interest, it is very likely that you will not be able to keep up with the fast-paced process of the animation production scene, and you will eventually be eliminated.

Generally speaking, animation production is divided into two directions: original painting and animation, newcomers generally have to start learning from animation, mainly responsible for cleaning up and outlining the original painting, and drawing the middle between the original painting; Animation is the foundation of the original painting, and the original painting is a key part of the whole animation work. In the process of self-study, it is true that it will not be affected by the school system education, but it is often impossible to form a more objective evaluation of their own works, and it is easy to be complacent, resulting in a weak foundation of animation, so that it is impossible to advance to the level of original painting, so it is very difficult to enter the animation industry from an amateur.

As for the academic school, the situation is not optimistic.

After entering the 90s of the 20th century, the traditional training mode has undergone some changes, and higher education has begun to get involved in the cultivation of animation talents, especially after entering the 21st century, many universities have begun to set up animation majors. In 2000, Kyoto Seika University, a private university in Fuso, offered its first manga major in the university and enrolled four-year students. Subsequently, many universities followed the example of Kyoto Seika University and established animation majors, manga majors, and animation majors. Currently, the universities that offer animation majors are mainly concentrated in the Kansai and Tokyo areas of Fuso. Moreover, these schools are mainly private universities, and most of them are run by universities with art departments.

The fact that private universities in Fuso are offering animation majors is directly related to the intensification of competition among Fuso's universities. In order to attract more students, many private universities are looking for ways to open new majors to meet the society's demand for various talents. However, just like the difference between all universities and junior colleges, usually colleges and universities do not emphasize practicality enough, and many times study problems from an academic and theoretical point of view, and for animation majors that emphasize practicality, the result may be to mass-produce a group of animation makers with low vision.

In the 80s of the 20th century, the animation industry in Fuso has formed a huge scale, and animation production is a very practical major, so it was first favored by secondary colleges and vocational high schools, and many schools have opened animation majors. According to incomplete statistics, as of 2011, more than 400 secondary colleges and vocational high schools have opened animation-related majors.

For most people who volunteer to work in the animation industry, it is the first choice to study in a junior college, because it is perpendicular to the professional field, and the professional division is very detailed and comprehensive, including original painting, character setting, background art and other directions; moreover, some schools have direct contact with animation production companies, and at the same time introduce a corporate internship system to allow students to go to the production site for internships.

Therefore, animation colleges pay more attention to practicality than universities, but recently many animation practitioners have said that students who have graduated from junior colleges are often not enough.

Teaching them to use various drawing tools is very laborious and time-consuming, and animation colleges pay more attention to the cultivation of skills, often ignoring the most basic pen work. Some students graduate and don't even know how to copy, and it takes a long time to learn how to draw.

In addition, talent development is one thing, and so is the job market.

With the increasing number of animation projects, few animation companies have included animation maker training and newcomer education programs in their budgets. After all, the industry is fiercely competitive, and animation companies have to operate on wheels to maintain their own operations, and cultivating new talents is very stressful for the company.

Many companies in the domestic industry do not train new producers in terms of technical and negotiation skills, but directly push them to the scene of animation production, so that new producers do not have the overwhelming ability to play an active role as freelancers. Even if there are animation companies that cultivate talents in a down-to-earth manner, in the end, there are many cases where these cultivated talents are poached by large animation companies with sufficient funds, and the atmosphere of well-cultivated talents being poached by large companies at will also makes many companies not want to cultivate excellent talents themselves.

Usually, Fuso's animation companies have employees and temporary employees, and the employees of the company generally sign multi-year contracts directly, and the treatment and benefits are relatively perfect. Temporary employees are contracted according to the work, and the money is calculated by piece. Only 35.1% of employees have signed regular contracts, while 60.8% are temporary employees and freelancers.

In addition, many animation production companies do not hire regular employees, but use temporary and short-term employees to use producers, so they do not receive guidance from their bosses, and they are temporary workers, so their productivity cannot be improved. Finally, large companies gather a group of producers with excellent skills and capabilities, and small companies gather a group of inexperienced and incompetent producers, which leads to low production efficiency and low profit margins in the industry as a whole, and finally falls into a vicious circle of low wages for young animators with non-regular employees.

In the animation industry, a rookie producer should start with the middle frame animation, and then make the original painting when the experience and technical strength have accumulated to a certain stage. More than 100 people may be involved in the production of an anime, and the amount of time spent on animation is enormous, usually 10 million to 25 million yen for a 30-minute TV animation, and about 200 million yen for a 13-minute anime. If the money is paid by the animation company itself, in case the animation does not catch fire, these costs become huge liabilities, and in order to share the risk, advertising companies and sponsors will have to be introduced.

In order to ensure the smooth broadcast of the work, in fact, the production of animation has to be distributed to many small and medium-sized companies, and the commissions of these small and medium-sized companies are drawn from the production costs, and the small and medium-sized companies that contract these jobs do not make much profit, and the production structure of the animation production industry is the same as that of the construction industry and the talent dispatch industry. Even if such a structure makes an animation popular, it makes it impossible for grassroots producers, especially new animators, to eat meat.

In the anime of "White Box", it is mentioned that the annual income of new animators is only about 1.1 million yen, but in fact, many new animators earn less than 1 million yen a year.

The system of remuneration mainly adopts the system of more work and more reward, which will vary greatly depending on the speed of individual work and the mastery of the essentials, resulting in many people not being able to sustain themselves at all in the end. And the work time of animation is even more than 10 hours a day, so there is no extra time to do side hustles. The salary issue directly leads to a high turnover rate, and generally speaking, only 1 in 10 people who enter the animation industry will stay.

And so many of the above situations are actually reflected in various positions in the animation industry. Not only artists, but also voice actors, special effects, audio recordings, etc., actually have similar problems.

Fortunately, Fusang's animation market is large enough and attractive enough, otherwise it will be such an elimination ratio, if there is not enough new people at the bottom continue to pour in, this industry is afraid to eat jujube pills.

Of course, even so, Fusang's animation production capacity is still stronger than that in China, after all, people have accumulated too long, experience, and heritage are much deeper than those in China, and in terms of market, Fusang's animation market is far more mature than in China.

The animation industry in Fuso is based on the well-developed comic industry, and the animation industry has grown and strengthened by relying on the comic industry. The comic industry in Fuso started in the late 40s of the 20th century and entered a glorious stage in the late 60s, when the output value of comic publishing accounted for more than 10% of the total output value of the publishing industry. As the world's largest exporter of animation works, Fuso occupies 6% of the international market, and its share in the European and American markets has reached more than 80%.

Fuso publishes about 6 billion copies a year, of which 2.1 billion, or more than 30 percent, are manga periodicals and single books, and more than 50 percent of the total number is counted alone. Quanfuso has more than 430 animation production companies and countless freelance animation producers, more than 80 animation blockbusters are released in movie theaters every year, and more than 4,000 animation episodes are broadcast on TV stations every year.

According to other data, 87% of Fuso people like manga, 84% own items related to manga characters, and anime fans organize hundreds of anime clubs that regularly publish their newsletters. Overseas, Fuso animation is also gaining momentum: according to preliminary statistics, about 60% of the animation programs broadcast in the world are produced by Fuso, 68 countries in the world broadcast Fuso TV animation, 40 countries release its animated films, and many Fuso animation images have become familiar to audiences in various countries.

In addition, more than 60% of the anime works broadcast globally are from Fuso, and in Europe the proportion is even higher, reaching more than 80%. Among the various cultural industries in Fusang, the various animation programs broadcast in movie theaters and television stations are particularly eye-catching, and the characters of various anime fill the streets, which have long gone beyond the scope of magazines and television, and have penetrated into all corners of Fuso society. According to relevant survey statistics, the size of the Fuso animation market has remained above 200 billion yen since 2008. Sales in 2014 were 242.8 billion yen, an increase of 4.21% over 2013.

In terms of the production market, the children's and home animation production market remained stable in 2014 at 61,300 minutes. The market for late-night TV animation production was 50,500 minutes, up from 42,800 minutes in 2013. From the perspective of the revenue structure of Fuso's animation industry, the revenue of Fuso's animation industry mainly comes from audio-visual products and TV broadcasting, accounting for 63% of the total, and the revenue from commercial licensing accounts for 8%.

After the manga serialized in the famous manga weekly magazine became popular, the manga artist gradually entered a variety of media forms such as television animation, DVD (OVA), and cinema (theatrical version), and further developed a large number of spin-off products such as dolls and games. There are also successful works from games to manga and anime. Generally speaking, the animation industry in Fuso is not separated, and animation, comics, and games are basically going hand in hand.

This alone is very difficult to do in China, not only now, but even in 2018 before the rebirth of the previous life, it is extremely difficult to do this.

To be honest, Zhou Fangyuan was really envious of the animation industry environment over there, but then again, he hoped to develop in his own side, so he would not hesitate to spend money and set up training courses within the Yuanfang Group to train his animation production talents.