Thread by @Richmond_Lee

Labor union poster by Katsuya Kondo (近藤 勝也) a luminary of Studio Ghibli (character designer behind GOAT films like Kiki's Delivery Service) and also character designer for the very underrated game, Jade Cocoon!

https://twitter.com/ykarps/status/1461359695860363268

Here is the website for the organization that this was made for. You can still see Katsuya Kondo's art sprinkled throughout this site. I believe they are a construction worker union.

kanagawa-doken.or.jp

While I have your attention, did you know that Studio Ghibli regularly publishes a free, unapologetically leftist, anti war magazine every month? They've been doing this for decades!

https://twitter.com/Richmond_Lee/status/1381777187959754753?s=20

Ghibli doesn't do this because it's trendy. It's not something they recently stumbled across for social cache. This has been a core part of their culture for decades. They do it because they really believe in it and I think that deserves respect.

https://twitter.com/Richmond_Lee/status/1381789885414006785?s=20

(not that there's anything wrong with getting into this stuff now either! More power to you if you're only just now learning about unions etc. I just want to deflect any shallow criticisms that they're just another corporation chasing trends instead of having actual values)

If you live in Japan, you can subscribe to Neppu here:

ghibli.jp/shuppan/np/007…

While Neppu is free in bookstores, the mail subscription has a small fee to cover the cost of shipping.

You can catch up on back issues of Neppu on Mandarake here:

order.mandarake.co.jp/order/listPage…

They're surprisingly affordable! But also mostly sold out😅

Someone just linked me to this article. Looks like Ghibli themselves aren't exactly perfect either. Don't get too precious about any big organizations. Everyone can always do better!

cbr.com/steve-alpert-s…

I don't mean that last tweet to be some kind of "gotcha" moment that negates everything before it. No one is flawless. Anyone who presents themselves as such should be regarded with suspicion. You can love something & acknowledge its flaws & failures & encourage it to do better!

I just remembered what a loathsome cesspool CBR has become, so here's another look at what Steve Alpert had to say about Ghibli breaking labor laws in his own words, with no clickbaity spin to it:

thisbookthatbook.com/steve-alperts-…

CBR made it sound like Steve Alpert was writing some shocking expose, when in fact he recounts the experience of Ghibli breaking labor laws with glee. This kind of crazy schedule is actually very common, even expected in Japanese animation.

source:
thisbookthatbook.com/steve-alperts-…

Just to be clear, I'm personally against crunch and we do everything we can to avoid it at my studio. But crunch has been baked into the fabric of animation culture worldwide for ages. It's only very recently that people have begun to question en masse its validity.

In much of the world, artists tend to view crunch as a positive experience, a badge of honor. This is still very common throughout SE Asia from my experience, especially with younger artists and devs (who dont have families to go home to!)

From my personal experience, sometimes you really are in the zone and you don't want to leave. I'm sure folks who have worked late nights at art school or at game jams or on personal projects know this feeling. You just don't want to stop.

Sometimes you have really good synergy as a group, and you all really don't want to stop and lose that momentum. I get it. But my official policy in those cases would still be to stop crunching and just bring that energy back after sleeping properly.

Personal work is very different from professional, commercial work. I think if people want to burn the midnight oil on personal projects, go for it (though I still think sleeping and coming back rested is the better way to go if possible!)

However I strongly feel that crunch is very bad for organizations as a whole. It burns people out. From a purely practical standpoint, it's not sustainable. And it's often exploitative.

I have a feeling that those Ghibli animators wanted to be in the studio for those long hours though. I have to admit, if I were given the opportunity to crunch with Hayao Miyazaki, I'd be a hypocrite and do it.

It's a complex issue once personal preference and boundaries come into play. It's not so cut and dry. Nothing I say excuses Ghibli breaking labor laws. I just wanted to give more context to how complex the issue of crunch actually can be.

It gets way muddier when people actually WANT to be there! Also people can end up changing their minds, but feel pressure to stay etc. It's not easily summed up in a few tweets.

Ultimately I still think crunch should be avoided. You pay for it with your health and that sucks.