With current events, we’ve seen that holding onto one’s job or even successfully finding a new one can become nothing short of a Sisyphean challenge at times. This has been especially true for animation studios, which saw significant delays throughout every step of their pipeline. Now, Netflix and WIT Studio (Attack on Titan, Great Pretender, The Ancient Magus’ Bride), along with animation school Sasayuri, are collaborating on a new venture to help fledgling animators flourish. This new venture will be known as WIT Animator Academy, a six-month training program for animators with an opportunity to continue working with WIT Studio and Netflix after graduation.
Exclusive benefits of the program include Netflix covering tuition and living expenses for students, the opportunity to be mentored by WIT Studio veterans, and having esteemed animator Hitomi Tateno, previously an animator for Studio Ghibli for 30 years, as an instructor during the course. Unfortunately for those in the West, the course isn’t currently available for potential animators outside of Japan. The course will also be limited to ten students between the ages of 18 through 25. The program will run from April through September. Netflix has expressed that it has plans to support the program for years to come, eventually looking into expanding the educational reach of the program.
While the program sounds promising, it doesn’t erase the reality of being an animator in Japan, which comes with a wide salary gap compared to the rest of the world, consistently low pay for animators that are just starting off, as well as poor working conditions and harassment, even for animators working for well-known studios. While Netflix has said their collaboration with WIT Studio and the Sasayuri animation school is meant to offset the decline in people entering animation as a career, one could only hope that the big names involved also take a hard look at the systemic reasons that have driven the career into decline and begin to work on fixing them.
