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Otaku Dan

Looking Glass


Anime Studio Recruits Slaves by Blood Type

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A company recruiting animators has incited a storm of criticism for its refusal to hire people with blood types other than A and O, as well as its requirement that inexperienced employees work as trainees for a year without any pay…

The company’s recruitment request runs thus:

“If you are a high school graduate under the age of 23, and have a blood type of A or O, we have an opportunity for you.”

[The request describes how to send them sample pictures]

“We’d like people who can live a year without pay, and whose families don’t object please!

Please read below and apply!

For those with no experience, the basis of our recruitment is that you will work for a year without any remuneration, as training.

As you need experience to work in the industry and we can’t use you as a pro from the start (though even if you are useless and work a year, you are still useless), and instructing you takes up employee time, to say nothing of the cost of attending an anime course and the value of actual experience over simple study, we think this is a great deal.”

[The rest of the very long and uninteresting document is redacted]

Whilst it is true that animators are virtual slaves already, possibly this is taking things too far.

Many within and without the industry have worried that working conditions and pathetically low salaries threaten to drain the field of new talent, and certainly this seems a relevant observation in this case.

The company in question is “Shindou Productions,” run by Mitsuo Shindou, an animator/director who has worked on a wide variety of titles, including Dragonball, Yu Gi Oh, Chibimaruko, Saint Seiya, Rurouni Kenshin and others; 2ch unkindly remarks that none of his works are known for the quality of their animation, except in the “quality” sense.

2ch is unsurprisingly scathing:

“Can’t they be sued for discrimination or something for using blood type like that?”

“This isn’t a contract, so no. But if it were, they probably could.”

“I’m O! YES!”

“Their DVDs won’t sell with this.”

“With stuff like this the Japanese anime industry will go on shrinking…”

“Tell us why! Why the limit on blood types?”

“Can you change your blood type?”

“Shindo Pro., these guys famous?”

“Mitsu Shindou, famous for quality collapse on a variety of anime, is the CEO.”

“I Googled him, he’s 65. Looks like the kind of old-fashioned thing someone like that might say.”

“Is this so bad? In the west unpaid trainees are the norm. And B types have trouble with detailed work like this, it’s an appropriate choice. I think I’m A.”

“Notice the fact that it is not appropriate to actually believe in blood types affecting personality!”

“Think about it. They don’t want B types because they are bad workers, they don’t want them because they think the others will put up with more abuse and be company slaves!”

With such companies, the Japanese anime industry perhaps deserves its current troubles.



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