Brace yourselves people, Snooze is here to ruin the doujinshi fun with another serious and alarming article. Today I learned about a new medium that’s planned to debut in the industry later this year in 2024 that’s called “light anime”. It arose from a partnership between Dai Nippon Printing who will provide planning for these projects, and Imagica Group who will produce them. What does this mean exactly? A light anime is essentially when a manga panel is animated slightly and the lines are narrated by a voice actor(s). You’ve probably seen this done before by fans on Twitter or YouTube as it's a cheap way to produce a series. Well, it appears that this cheap alternative has caught the eye of some business executives with official plans to create multiple series in this medium. 

So why are people upset, with known animators in the industry such as Mizue Ogawa (Bleach, Attack on Titan) coming out to publicly criticize the idea on social media? It’s due to the state of the overall industry and the message this is sending. Right now anime is experiencing a massive bubble. The medium has grown to entice audiences worldwide as “nerdy” hobbies have essentially become perfectly mainstream in the past decade. The demand for anime continues to surge with hyped releases each year, and yet the conditions for the people who make these anime possible are becoming worse and worse. Executives are wanting continued growth, and thus push animators to work faster and harder in order to drive up their studio’s numbers. This can be seen as recently as the big Jujutsu Kaisen scandal of late. This “light anime” idea is appealing to the higher-ups for three main reasons. First, they estimate it can be produced for 10% of the cost of a season of anime. Second, it can be constructed much quicker. Lastly, it can be produced with a small team of approximately 10 staff. Overall it boils down to a cheap method to drive up the quantity while the quality suffers as key features like coloring and… you know… actually animating a scene entirely are omitted.

Nah, I need my characters colored.

Light anime on its own isn’t the worst idea ever for smaller studios with limited budgets or fans wanting to adapt a manga with their friends to practice or build a portfolio, but when combined with the current state of the industry, it’s being pretty universally hated as the greed behind the idea is tangible. Mizue argued that if this is how the industry wants to treat anime, they may as well stick to reading manga and I have to agree. I love anime because of the vast ways it goes beyond what manga can allow for and I don’t want to see those aspects thrown away because they cost extra. I’d rather just wait more patiently for anime to release and ensure those in the staff are compensated properly to where they don’t want to quit (or quit life).

Hopefully the debut of this medium in an official sense goes over poorly. Lord knows if it does decently, executives will jump at the opportunity to cut so many costs while still retaining enough viewership and impact to stay afloat. Have you heard about the upcoming light anime in 2024? Are you hopeful or doubtful about their release? Would it be a good idea if it wasn’t so closely linked to the ongoing conflict about working conditions in the industry? Animate a guy’s hair moving in a panel, voice a few lines, and upload episode one of a light anime in the comments below!