Why are All the Animation Studios in Japan?

[JerryvonKramer]

This might seem like a naive question, but why do American shows always seem to outsource their animation to Japanese studios?

DCAU is, of course, the prime example but a large amount of the major US 'toons of the 80s were made in Japan too: including Thundercats, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, The Real Ghostbusters, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ducktales, Inspector Gadget and so on.

My question is: why would companies who have prestigious (or at least fully functional) animation studios in their own right (Warner Bros., Disney, Filmation etc.) need to outsource their animation half way round the world. I'm guessing that the Japanese studios aren't any cheaper than US ones, so what gives?
​

 

[Undrave]

This might seem like a naive question, but why do American shows always seem to outsource their animation to Japanese studios?

DCAU is, of course, the prime example but a large amount of the major US 'toons of the 80s were made in Japan too: including Thundercats, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, The Real Ghostbusters, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ducktales, Inspector Gadget and so on.

My question is: why would companies who have prestigious (or at least fully functional) animation studios in their own right (Warner Bros., Disney, Filmation etc.) need to outsource their animation half way round the world. I'm guessing that the Japanese studios aren't any cheaper than US ones, so what gives?
​

Actually they outsource to Korrea.

It's cheaper there.

 

[DrTooth]

This might seem like a naive question, but why do American shows always seem to outsource their animation to Japanese studios?​

DCAU is, of course, the prime example but a large amount of the major US 'toons of the 80s were made in Japan too: including Thundercats, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, The Real Ghostbusters, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ducktales, Inspector Gadget and so on.​

My question is: why would companies who have prestigious (or at least fully functional) animation studios in their own right (Warner Bros., Disney, Filmation etc.) need to outsource their animation half way round the world. I'm guessing that the Japanese studios aren't any cheaper than US ones, so what gives?​

Firstly, A) I wish they still outsourced to Japan. They haven't done that since... well... maybe even just after Freakazoid. They've been using Korea since the Mid90's, and they're doing it still as of today. In the future, they may even move their facilities to India.

B) It is cheaper. Or was. it was non-union, and they could pay pennies on the dollar to get the job done./ Sometimes some of thre work is actually done in the US, but it's just inbetweening and stuff. And even then, it's a rare occurance.

C) Back to my A statement. I wish we still got Japanese animation like we did in the 80's. I have to say, a lot of it was pretty beautiful... I think TMS did one hell of a job with DIC properties (Inspector Gadget for example) and Ducktales. Toei did some great stuff too. I especially like their episodes of Muppet babies. The Tawianese episodes later in the run were very poorly animated, especially final season stuff.

 

[Ed Liu]

Nowadays, I think a lot of the Japanese animation houses outsource to Korea, too. It does definitely come down to money -- labor of any kind in America is expensive, so it's still just a lot cheaper to outsource stuff overseas. Disney shuttered its domestic animation facilities recently (because 2-D Animation was Dead because Audiences Didn't Want Hand-Drawn Animation, you see ), but I believe they are ramping back up in the wake of the Pixar merger to do The Frog Princess. Even when they did have domestic animation facilities, they still outsourced some animation overseas. Cinderella III and I think The Heffalump Movie were animated by a studio in Australia that was shut down right after CIII was done. Most of the stuff for the TV shows was done overseas, too, since the quality on those didn't have to be anywhere near as good. I'm pretty sure even the Tarzan movie was split between Disney-US and a Disney studio in France.

A lot of French animation companies apparently outsource to NORTH Korea because, obviously, they're mind-bogglingly dirt cheap compared to what South Korean animators charge. There's a pretty good graphic novel called Pyongyang by Guy Delisle that takes a look at what it's like to work in North Korea. I'm sure some work for American studios ends up being done in North Korea as well. Also, I believe India and China are both trying to ramp up domestic animation studios to try and compete with Korea to get more animation outsourcing, too. Cartoon Network's Chowder is outsourced to a Chinese studio, for instance.

--Ed

 

[Dudley]

Studios in America used to export animation to Japan, around the 80's to mid 90's it seems. The studios you mentioned, along with DiC Entertainment, and Sunbow, used to send it to Japanese animation studios like TMS (Tokyo Movie Shinsha), and Toei Animation. Disney themselves had a studio in Japan, until it was shut down.
Unfortunately, it has gotten to expensive to outsource it there, so America relies on studios in other countries in South Korea, or South Eastern animation studios.

 

[DrTooth]

Unfortunately, it has gotten to expensive to outsource it there, so America relies on studios in other countries in South Korea, or South Eastern animation studios.

And the end result is usually crap. Korean Animation is like what someone said about shooting a movie in Canada. It doesn't look like anything.

I did love Japanese animation in American cartoon shows. You can tell, just by the lanky leg movements of Inspector Gadget, someone working on that show worked on Lupin III. Even the facial movements are similar.

 

[FightingDreamer]

And the end result is usually crap. Korean Animation is like what someone said about shooting a movie in Canada. It doesn't look like anything.

Well, not always; Avatar, for instance, has the bulk of its animation done by Korean studios (I heard on one of the DVD commentaries that some of it is indeed done in America), and the results are good-to-great: Movement is a little off and jerky sometimes, but the battle scenes are almost always fantastic.

Still, I do miss one big Japanese studio who worked on a lot of American shows: TMS.Their best work was probably on shows like Batman, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, or Superman. They also did a fantastic job with Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, which may have some of the best animated fight scenes ever.

 

[Classic Speedy]

And the end result is usually crap. Korean Animation is like what someone said about shooting a movie in Canada. It doesn't look like anything.

Anything by Rough Draft Korea being an exception, of course.

 

[BigLouMan20]

What about Akom for their work on the Simpsons and SunWoo for Family Guy and American Dad? Dong Woo for The Boondocks, but I agree Rough Draft does a damn good job.

 

[Zen Man]

For those curious, heres a list of the American properties that Tokyo Movie Shinsha has worked on.

Courtesy of Wikipedia:

Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog (Quest of the Chaos Emeralds 4-Parter was done by Telecom Animation Film, the episode Super Robotnik was done by TMS; other episodes were done by various animation studios)
An American Tail 3: The Treasure of Manhattan Island
Animaniacs (among other companies)
Batman: The Animated Series (select episodes)
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker (direct-to-video feature; TV series is done by Rough Draft Studios)
Bionic Six
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
Cybersix (Japanese/Canadian co-production by Telecom Animation Film)
Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears
Dennis the Menace (in collaboration with other companies)
DuckTales (a couple of episodes were also done by Telecom Animation Film)
Futurama (occasionally)
Galaxy High
Galaxy Rangers
Heathcliff
Inspector Gadget (a handful of episodes were also animated by Cuckoo's Nest Studios)
The Littles
Mighty Orbots
The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh
Peter Pan and the Pirates (13 episodes; other episodes were done by various South Korean studios.)
Reporter Blues (Italian series)
Pinky and the Brain (among other companies)
Real Ghostbusters
Soccer Fever (Italian series)
Spider-Man (1994 Fox series, animated together with Korean studios.)
Superman: The Animated Series
Sweet Sea
The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries (Season 1)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Tiny Toon Adventures (among other companies)
The Transformers (1 episode, Call of the Primitives, only; other episodes by Japanese studio Toei and South Korean studio AKOM)
Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light
Wuzzles
Zorro: The Animated Series
Rainbow Brite

I'm not an anime fan, but I appreciate the fine quality that TMS bought to many of the American animated cartoons.

 

[Classic Speedy]

What about Akom for their work on the Simpsons and SunWoo for Family Guy and American Dad?

AFAIK, Sunwoo never animated for American Dad. That's all Yearim (another Korean studio).

 

[DrTooth]

Anything by Rough Draft Korea being an exception, of course.

There are a handful of good studios... those guys and the people who animated Curious George (which has the most beautiful fluid animation I've seen since Animaniacs left television). But a lot of them just animate generic looking junk. It doesn't even look like anything. plus, with digital animation, it's so sterile and overly perfect looking. I can't stand it.

When we had Japan's stuff, we had quite a decent ammount of Anime stylings hidden into the show.

I like how in the Ducktales episode, "Send in the Clones" you can clearly see a bottle of Sake in Scrooge's Fridge.

 

[Chris Wood]

Even most anime have a lot of work done in Korea these days.

Didn't know about that France/North Korea link though. Pass those Freedom Fries!

 

[Golgo13]

Sunbow was responsible for some of the sloppiest animation I've seen in Transformers and G.I. Joe and, yet, Transformers and G.I. Joe became cult favorites despite the long list of errors in the animation.

 

[Undrave]

I thought only China did buisness with North Korea!

And wouldn't foreign cartoons 'corrupt' those brave North-Korean animators?

 

[Gokou Ruri]

Sunbow was responsible for some of the sloppiest animation I've seen in Transformers and G.I. Joe and, yet, Transformers and G.I. Joe became cult favorites despite the long list of errors in the animation.

Alot of stuff in the 80s had sloppy animation and tons of animation errors.

 

[BigLouMan20]

AFAIK, Sunwoo never animated for American Dad. That's all Yearim (another Korean studio).

My mistake.

 

[DrTooth]

Alot of stuff in the 80s had sloppy animation and tons of animation errors.

I took a second look at some of it, and the sloppiest stuff started coming on later in the decade (Super Mario Supershow had multiple errors, especially a large chunck of episodes they made at the beginning).

Of course, then we have the translation error, where someone speaks out of the wrong character's mouth.

 

[Dudley]

And the end result is usually crap.

Nah, their stuff can get really good.
It's the stuff from the south east asian countries that are crap.
Like Toon City, which Disney insists on using.

 

[Zen Man]

I took a second look at some of it, and the sloppiest stuff started coming on later in the decade (Super Mario Supershow had multiple errors, especially a large chunck of episodes they made at the beginning).

Of course, then we have the translation error, where someone speaks out of the wrong character's mouth.

I always wondered why finished episodes on 80's cartoons and some early 90's cartoons seemed so sloppy. Was it because of deadline issues or was it because of money reasons?

I remember a real culprit was The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3 which seemed to have errors in almost all the episodes.