――Could you share the main work that you currently do with us?
Currently, I am a board member at Production I.G. I am in charge of back-office departments such as administration, general affairs, accounting, finance, and legal, as well as the IP Management Department, where I oversee the management and operation of copyrights owned by the company. In addition, I am also involved in executive secretarial and public relations duties, utilizing my many years of experience in those areas.
In summary, I am responsible for two main roles: “Administration” and “IP Management.”
――It seems that you are in charge of various departments, but in your mind, which job do you feel is your main one?
I think it would probably be IP management and operation.
――Next, may I ask you how you got into the animation industry in the first place?
Actually, my decision to work in the animation industry was completely by chance. Although I studied drawing in high school and junior college, I was not confident that I could make a living as a professional in that field, so I moved to Tokyo from my hometown and started working for a regular company. I had to leave my first job for personal reasons, but, after that, I was thinking that since I was in Tokyo, I wanted to experience a job that I could only do in Tokyo before returning to my hometown, when I came across an opening for a position at the [Tokyo Polytechnic University] Suginami Animation Museum. I thought it would be fun to be involved in animation, but the museum director, Mr. Shinichi Suzuki, recommended me to apply for a job in the anime industry, saying to me, “If you like anime so much, you should apply for it because there is a position called the production assistant in anime, which has a relatively wide scope and anyone can qualify for it.”
I was surprised to learn that there were animation jobs that did not involve drawing pictures. I was told that a driving license was a requirement for production assistants, so I immediately set out to obtain a driver’s license so that I could apply for a production assistant position. However, since I had no knowledge of the industry to begin with, I did not have any particular preferences in my area of work, such as definitely wanting a job as a production assistant, and I was open to any job related to anime. I applied for jobs at several animation studios, and out of all the companies that offered me a position, I ended up joining I.G, which had produced my favorite series, “Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade.”
I entered Production I.G, not as a production assistant, but as a staff member in the PR department for the works made by the studio, and it was there that I built up my experience in the industry.
――So your previous job had nothing to do with anime?
Yes. Before my part-time job at the museum, I had only done work unrelated to anime.
――At what approximate age did you start working part-time at the museum?
I think I was 23 years old.
――So you entered the workforce quite early and then entered the animation industry in your 20s?
That’s right. I did not expect to be in this industry for such a long time.
――At the time, I understand that the job of a production assistant was physically demanding, tasks would include, for example, carrying objects, and as a woman would you say that you had a lot of difficulties with that kind of work?
I wanted to be in charge of the production assistants, but in the end, I was not permitted to work as a production assistant, and unfortunately, I did not have the opportunity to serve in that capacity.
――At that time, were the female staff more likely to be in charge of the type of business you mentioned than be production assistants?
I have the impression that I.G had many women working there from the time that I started, although there were fewer working there than there is now. (Michiko) Yamakawa was one or two years my senior the year I joined the company and the two people who were in charge of my training at that time were also women. There were also several women who joined the company at the same time in the production assistant position. The clean-up department has a large number of female staff, so much so that 90% of the staff members are women, and when I joined I.G, I honestly felt that there were more women than I had expected.
――In terms of how easy it was to work there, how would you describe a workplace that has a large number of women working in?
Yes, it’s quite easy to work in that kind of environment. I joined the company in October of 2005, and this year will be my 20th year. I have taken maternity and parental leave twice and have worked while raising two children. When I joined I.G, I had an image of what working in the anime industry was like and vaguely thought that I would not be able to continue working after having children. However, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, the chairman of I.G, is very fond of children and kept saying to me, “Do your best,” and entrusted me with work even after I returned to workplace following my leave. The number of “mother employees” in the company has also increased considerably. Thanks to the understanding and support of my colleagues, I am still working as an executive. I have the impression that the company has a climate in which women can work comfortably, and that it is a company that is relatively positive about the promotion of women.
――It must be hard raising two kids while working. I honestly think it’s amazing.
Yes, it is hard. But I don’t really think of child-rearing as hard work because my children are so adorable. Still, I’ve thought that I might not be able to continue working on maybe one, two, three… eight occasions (laughs), but I am happy that my children are doing well, that I am doing a job that I myself love, and that I’m glad to see that my children also like a lot of anime series themselves while I continue to work.
――Were you able to go back to doing the same type of work after your maternity leave?
I was not able to go back to the same department when I returned to work after the birth of my first child, but it was not a negative thing. Someone from a different department approached me and said, “If you want, you can transfer here,” and upon my return to work, my duties shifted to executive secretarial duties and new business development. Thanks to that person’s invitation, I was able to stay with the company. I was really grateful because I was worried about whether I would be able to return to work at all.
――It seems that you have done many different jobs in the anime industry, so have these changes in your work coincided with your events in your life? Would you say that there is somewhat of a pattern of you moving to another job after you had a child?
Things have changed quite a bit now, but back then, around the early 2000s, I don’t think there was any room for people to fill in the gaps created by staff taking long leaves of absence. Recently, the production system has been improved and work is divided among teams, making it easier for employees to take extended leaves of absence. We have been hiring a fixed number of employees each year and reviewing the working environment in our company as needed to incorporate the attitudes of the younger generation, so I feel that it has become easier to balance childcare and styles of working.
――Was the change a top-down directive?
It was not top-down, but due to the efforts of the staff involved in hiring and the other staff around them, and I think it is a synergistic effect of the changing times. I.G hires about five to ten production assistants and animators each year. By hiring new recruits every year, a new, younger generation with a new perspective on labor joins the company, which forces us to be aware of how to work in accordance with the changing times. I believe that this has allowed the company to update its perspective on what work should look like.
In the past, it was said that if one person could not handle one episode of a TV anime series on their own, they were not a full-fledged worker. Now, however, we have multiple people working on one episode to reduce the workload per person and to reduce late-night overtime work. We are now able to share the workload by staggering arrival times, so that those who arrive early can leave early, those who arrive late can take night duty, and other complicated related tasks can be shared. From a management perspective, there are some difficulties with this new system because what used to be possible with the labor cost of one person now requires the cost of, say, two people, but I feel that the ease of working at our company is improved every year.
――Do you mean that Production I.G has a good working environment and working conditions where new attitudes towards labor and other ideas spill over into the company as a result of generational change?
Yes, among the anime studios in Japan, I.G has been a mainstay in the industry as a company with many years of operation, and the opinions of veteran staff and young people do not always match, but I think it is a good thing that different opinions come up in conversation. We are not always able to accommodate the opinions of the younger staff, but I think we are gradually integrating what we can with our company’s management resources.
――So there is a nice atmosphere of openness in the company that maintains close communication and creates opportunities for everyone to discuss things with each other.
I personally think it’s a good environment, but I also think the experience probably varies from person to person. I am the type of person who likes to talk, so I talk to all kinds of people, but I think there are many people in the company who are not good communicators or who refrain from speaking up. Therefore, it may not be the case that everyone feels that their opinions are being fully heard. I think this is something we will work on as a company.
――I imagine that there are many different employees with a variety of personalities, but have there been any instances, for example, where you think that men and women have different experiences with communication in the company depending on their gender, or that communication is difficult due to issues around gender identity? I apologize if this question comes off a bit rude.
When I personally became pregnant and gave birth, I thought, “Men have it good.” Even during maternity leave, I thought, “It’s not like I’m taking time off because I wanted a vacation.” However, I also thought that no matter how much I wished to keep working, it was functionally a gendered issue so to speak, and since it was based on the fact that only women can conceive and give birth, there was nothing I could do about it by the force of my will or my thoughts. And when I was faced with the fact that men don’t have to think so much about the risks of a period of unemployment resume or needing to receive permission to return to work at the same company they were working at prior to the birth when they have a child, I honestly felt jealous.
――Don’t men take parental leave?
At I.G, there have been some cases of men taking parental leave. I think that awareness of the need for men to participate in childcare is growing considerably. If people are aware that someone in the company has taken parental leave, I hope that the number of men and women that will take parental leave will gradually increase, and that more people will think of child-rearing as something that partners need to work with each other on.
――How long do men take parental leave?
It varies from person to person, but I think it is typically about one month.
――Can the person requesting leave choose the length their leave?
It depends on the company’s regulations and how you want to deal with the work you are working on before the leave. It should be determined by your desire to return during the peak season of the work you are in charge of and your family situation, among other factors. Since I.G as a whole has a work schedule that uses flex time, some people in my department did not take parental leave but chose to work while supporting their partners by utilizing flex time and options for fully remote work.
――So working fully remote is possible?
Yes, it is. The situation is that, following the COVID-19 pandemic, the conditions for remote work were sufficiently developed in I.G that we are able to provide the option for remote working to staff. We do not strongly recommend fully remote work as a system, and it is not always allowed depending on the nature of the work, but after interviewing the person requesting remote work, we landed on allowing him to work fully remote because he did not want to stop working entirely but also wanted to help his partner. Following a fixed period of time as a remote worker, he is now back to a regular in-person work schedule.
――Have many people gotten married within the company?
I think there are many marriages within the workplace. My partner is also a former colleague. He has already retired from I.G, though. I feel that workplace marriages are relatively common, but I think there are both good and difficult aspects to that.
――I have heard a rumor that it is disastrous when animators marry each other. What do you think?
I don’t know the details of the rumor, but I think it may mean that it is difficult for the couple when the busy season of each partner’s work overlaps with one another. I believe that one’s personal policies towards working and personal policies towards their private life vary between person to person, and since they would often be involved in the same work, I think it is easy for them to get into trouble if they unintentionally coddle each other or, on the contrary, become strict with each other and are quick to argue. However, I think this is the same in any industry, regardless of whether or not it is work related to anime.
In business, there may be a hierarchical relationship attached to their work dynamic, or it may be difficult to switch on and off between work mode and their private life , or they may be too concerned about the other person’s busy season to be vulnerable with them. If a couple is in the same line of work, I think everyone ends up in this same kind of working environment with their spouse, regardless of if the work is related to anime.
――Conversely, are there times where you share your problems at work with your partner?
I would say so. In my case, my partner is also involved in anime production and works close to the production studio. When I am unsure how to make a decision due to a lack of information on an area of work in which I have no experience, I can ask my partner for advice from other perspectives, or conversely, I can give advice because I have knowledge in areas that my partner does not. Of course, we cannot discuss confidential information, but I still feel that there are benefits from being in the same profession.
――Going back to when you were involved in the opening of the Suginami Animation Museum, was Mr. Shinichi Suzuki the museum director?
Yes, he was. Mr. Suzuki is known for being the model for “the ramen noodle loving Koike-san” (Note 1), a reoccurring character in the manga works of Fujiko Fujio. I am not sure if Mr. Suzuki remembers a rank and file staff member like me, but I believe that I was able to enter this industry thanks to him.
(Note 1. Koike, a middle-aged man with curly hair, is one of the famous characters by Fujiko Fujio. Koike always eats ramen in his manga, for example, Qtaro, the Ghost （オバケのQ太郎）. Koike is modeled after Mr. Shinichi Suzuki.)
――What kinds of interactions did you have with Mr. Shinichi Suzuki at that time?
Our interactions were on the level of the museum director and a part-time staff member, but he was the one who showed me that I could work in the animation industry. We chatted on a daily basis. At the time, the internet was not as convenient as it is today, so he brought me printouts for several job listings from the career pages of anime companies. He told me, “(Jobs in the anime industry) can be found like this,” and, soon after, I realized that he was right. It was thanks to Mr. Suzuki that I decided to give working for a company in the anime industry a shot while I was in Tokyo. He is a very kind person. I think he is kind to everyone.
――When I was a graduate student, I also went to the Suginami Animation Museum to have a talk with Director Suzuki, and although it was a surprise visit, he came out and talked to me. I got the impression that he was a very frank and nice person.
Definitely, and similar to your experience, Mr. Suzuki kindly guided me through the job process. I joined as an opening staff member, and although it was just one of the part-time jobs that I worked until I was hired by I.G, I really enjoyed it. In the museum, fittingly there were wonderful key frame drawings and cels from I.G’s production, “Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade ” on display. I think that if I had not done this part-time job, I might not be working at a company in the anime industry now.
――What kinds of interactions do you have with Mr. Hitsuhisa Ishikawa of I.G?
After the birth of my first child, I was officially transferred from my original department to the company’s public relations department. The senior staff member who was Ishikawa’s secretary at that time was retiring, so I started doing secretarial work for Ishikawa from then for about six years. However, that job alone left me with a fair amount of free time, so I also took on other jobs such as working on the trial runs for new businesses at I.G. Mr. Ishikawa has been good to me ever since my time working as his secretary, so much so that I can’t even pick just one instance as an example of when he was kind to me.
――How close were you with Mr. Ishikawa?
Because we were very close, we sometimes also had fights. For example, it was a small thing, but at the time, we did not have convenient services such as Google Calendar as we do now, so we managed Ishikawa’s schedule on a whiteboard. If one of us made a mistake in writing down his schedule, we no longer knew what was correct, and we often fought about which of us made a mistake (laugh).
――You are close enough to be able to quarrel with one another.
Yes, we are. I think he treats me very well.
――You must be very busy at work, and you also have children at home. How do you manage to both raise your children and work in the anime industry, which seems to be different from the so-called 9am to 5pm?
I think the good thing about companies in the anime industry is that there are options. The IP operations department does a lot of work that is similar to what we call “back-office” work. There is the work of managing the rights acquired by investing in a production committee as a representative of the committee’s members. This is similar to a typical sales or office job, so it is possible to come in around 10:00 a.m. and leave at 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. In the administrative department, except during the busy season, you can come to work between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. and go home around 8:00 p.m.
In the production studio, when the series you’re in charge of is not yet underway, you can come into work later or go home earlier by coordinating with your supervisor and colleagues. It may seem difficult to understand from the outside, but when there is not much work to do, you can choose to work in a way that is only possible when there is not much work on your docket. During the busy season, we are extremely busy, so I think there is the problem where we end up focusing only on the way we work during those times when we talk about the workload in the anime industry.
――There are many legends about how busy the workload is in the anime industry, such as staff sleeping on top of laid out cardboard boxes under their desks.
I think there was a time like that, but I think you must have been in a similar situation before presenting research at a conference or just before finishing a paper. It is not as if we are always extremely busy. Each individual has their own busy times that are out of sync with the busy times of others, but looking at things from the perspective of the company as a whole, it seems like we are always busy. In fact, there are some people in the company who seem to have a lot of free time, but there is a reason for that. For example, after the delivery of a series they were in charge of is completed, many of them take their accumulated compensatory holidays or unused paid vacation days to take a long vacation, or go on a trip. I don’t think this part of the anime industry gets much attention.
――How did you raise your children during the busy season?
I wanted to work as long as I could, so when my child was an infant, I would carry them on my back and return to the office to work. I also wanted to use my time as effectively as possible, so I would leave my child at a daycare center near the office and drop them off in the morning when the center opened, so that I could maximize my working hours by coming in to work early and leaving work early.
――Was it okay to bring your child to work with you?
At the time, people were very kind to me even though I was bringing my child to work. When I was busy, senior workers would give me a hand by playing with my child. I also saw other parents bringing their children to work. As far as I understand, as long as you are considerate of the other people in the office, the people around you are warm and welcoming. I have a funny story from a long time ago. When I was working in product planning and development, there was a day when I had to work on my day off because of my busy work schedule. I discussed it with my boss, and then my boss ended up taking my child to go apple picking. I thought it would be nice if my boss took over my work for me, but the result was that my child and my boss went apple picking and I was working on my day off. I thought it was basically the opposite of what I had expected, but then I thought, “Oh well, I enjoy my job,” and laughed. So what I’m trying to say is that I have the support of those around me.
――I suppose that’s because you’re able to communicate well about your family affairs, right?
Mr. Ishikawa also sometimes brought his own children to the company, and there’s an atmosphere at I.G where families with small children are welcome to bring their children with them to the company’s welcome party for new employees. My children are also invited to attend workplace meetings, so I feel that this kind of atmosphere where childcare is supported in the company is slowly coming into being.
――Normal companies have a “don’t bring your children” kind of atmosphere, right?
These days, there are people who want to be able to work while raising children, so I think this kind of company is fun to work at, but it can be hard for the type of people who want to focus diligently on their work. I think that regardless of the industry, there are ways of working that are considered suitable and unsuitable. If you want to put in 100% to both childcare and your work, I think you will be in a tough situation because both are things you can work on endlessly. However, I am the type of person who deals with things in a rather reasonable manner, so I think I am probably able to enjoy both.
――Even if you divided work, housework, and childcare into three categories where you dedicated 40% of your energy into each, the total energy needed would still exceed 100%, wouldn’t it?
I have decided not to do laundry on weekdays. I also only do a little bit of cleaning on weekdays. If I push myself too hard with housework, I lose control of my wellbeing and collapse. I don’t pay attention to things that don’t pose a direct risk to my life. Once I started thinking this way, things became much easier. When I used to think to myself, “I have to do things properly every day,” I was very stressed out, but I became disappointed with myself for getting frustrated, and I began to think that it is okay to give low priority to the things that are not life-or-death situations. I do all my laundry on the weekends, so I have a lot of clothes stocked up and they take up a lot of space, but I think it’s okay because I’m not going to die from it.
――Do you feel that you were able to become a role model for your juniors at I.G because you were able to continue working during your pregnancy without quitting your job?
I don’t think I would go so far as to call myself a role model. I am working in the back office, so I don’t think many people even know I exist. Even so, I think I was able to set a precedent for those who know me. I would be happy if my experience could become the topic of conversation, saying that there are people in the company who took a leave of absence like I did and returned to work afterwards. I also believe that I respond positively to the maternity and childcare leave of the junior staff in my department.
――I imagine the situation would be completely different if you were not at I.G.
I think my influence on the company is small. Still, when I see junior employees in similar situations struggling, it reminds me of myself when I was going through the same things. Most of them are torn between “I want to work so much more” and “I want to raise my children well.”
――Do you offer them guidance on how to handle that situation?
I don’t know how helpful or sympathetic I am, but, during regular consultations with staff members, I try to talk as much as possible about work-life balance, and about what the person wants to prioritize at regular meetings.
――Sounds like you’re a mentor to them. Is that something that came naturally to you or was there already such a system in place at I.G?
I conduct a consultation with the members of my department at least once every six months. From my point of view, I believe that the times when people want to work hard and the times when people want to take care of their personal lives come and go like the tide. I try to assign work to my staff based on what work they want to do, the work that the company can provide, and their current stamina.
――Since you have already told us so much about your career path, I would like to move on to the next question. What kind of work are you aiming to do in the future? What would you like to do next?
I don’t actually have anyone I aspire to be a role model for. I am so occupied with the work in front of me that I am ashamed to say that I don’t have anything noble like that in mind. However, anime production companies are currently going through a very difficult time on the management side of things due to multiple factors, including the rising labor costs, price inflation, and the weak yen, so I am thinking daily, albeit in a very small way, about how we can prevent our company from going under. We hear seemingly good news about the economic condition of the anime industry, such as how the Japanese anime market has grown to trillions of yen, but not much of that income is returned to the anime studios.
Recently, I have been thinking about how to directly return the profits from Japanese anime, which is said to be in fashion right now, to the anime production companies. Direct merchandising in the North American and Chinese markets is what I am working on at the moment. My short-term vision is to make some solid achievements in this area in the next year or two. If we can do this, perhaps the company will be able to expand that part of its business and establish a single income base. I would like to continue to try to make something work.
――What does I.G think about the introduction of public funding, for example?
Currently, our president is Mr. Jōji (George) Wada, and he has had opportunities to speak out as a member of the Film Strategy Planning Committee established by former Prime Minister Kishida. As for the inexhaustible government subsidies, we feel that it is dangerous to manage a business in such a way that it becomes dependent on them. I believe that I.G. is a company that is pretty diligent about its management, but there are some companies that are not doing well due to a lack of effort to properly manage the company. If a company makes a profit by working hard to manage its affairs, it will not be eligible for subsidies or grants, and if it does not put in serious effort and stays in the red, it will be eligible for subsidies or grants. In terms of aiming for self-reliant management, there is a risk that a certain imbalance may occur in the structure if you rely on government funding. To put it a different way, when a situation arises in which someone is seen as lucky because they don’t have to work, there is a question as to whether this is the correct form for an industry or a company to take.
For example, if there is a system in which a company with a deficit is subsidized for the amount of the deficit, even if it makes a painstaking effort to somehow make a profit, it will be more profitable for the company to make a deficit. If this happens, it is likely that some corporate entities will forget about their efforts to make a profit, or give up on the idea, right? And when the subsidy program is discontinued, it will become a company that cannot continue to run on its own. I am very concerned about these issues. However, it is clear that the management of production companies is not easy, and I think it would be meaningful to consider, for example, a tax incentive for the entertainment industry, as is the case in France.
When it comes to the provision of grants, it is very difficult to examine the screening process and whether the benefits are appropriate or not. Anime studios often do not have the funds for back-office staffing, and frankly, it is also difficult to prepare reports for the government after receiving grants and subsidies. Although I am responding in this way, it is my personal opinion rather than what I.G. thinks as a company.
――So you have to prepare reports to submit to the government if you receive subsidies?
Many production companies are overwhelmingly short on administrative staff, so if they receive a subsidy, they will be in a difficult situation due to the personnel expenditures needed to prepare reports and submit documents. I think that the smaller the company, the more likely they are to want the subsidy, but even if they receive it, they may not be able to handle the preparation of the necessary documents.
For example, there is a project for fostering young people commissioned by the Association of Japanese Animations as part of a project from the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and I.G. participated in it by submitting the plan for a video production, but it is a burden that is added to the usual accounting process, and there is a requirement to track the status of participating creators over several years for the purpose of tracking the progress of their creative development. I think it would be difficult for small studios to keep up with the demands of this project. I think this kind of project is really difficult for them.
――For all the talk about how “Japan is anime,” it seems that there is still no support system for companies receiving subsidies.
I think it would be better to have a system such as the one in France, where the tax is not a consumption tax, but a sales tax that is then returned back to the industry. It would be difficult to implement, though.
In Japan, I feel that the government does not often provide special assistance to profitable industries. Rather, I believe that a self-sustaining market is healthy. If there are too many subsidies, it could end up becoming an “overly protected” field, like the traditional performing arts. Therefore, I think the most important thing is for the industry as a whole to make an effort to work together.
In the case of I.G, we experience both the position of a production company and, on rare occasions, the position of a contractor. In this experience, we have realized that the market price for streaming platforms is almost fixed and that it is difficult to account for our ideal production cost in the market price. In addition, it is said that approximately one-hundred anime series are produced annually, of which only two to three are hits. Many of them could be called gambles to see whether or not they become hits, so I hope you understand that the industry as a whole is not profitable and prosperous.
――Finally, I’m sure there have been many good as well as difficult aspects to your experience working in the animation industry as a woman, so, focusing on the working conditions for women, do you have any suggestions for things that could be improved?
Personally, compared to my previous places of employment, I have rarely felt disadvantaged because of my gender, except for in maternity and parental leave. I think the culture is simple: if you produce results, you will be praised, and if you’re not able to, then you will not be praised.
However, since only women can give birth and use the maternity leave system, it is a fact that utilizing maternity leave will result in a gap in your employment. However, men are now able to take parental leave, and I feel that the gender gap has narrowed considerably in other areas. More than half of the recent hires have been women, and according to a survey of the male to female ratio in each department at I.G, there are some departments throughout the company where the number of women is slightly higher than men. Although there is still only one woman in the executive suite, there are five women in producer positions and two women in general manager positions, who are in a position in the company where they are able to speak out.
I believe that there are some areas where people are divided in terms of what they are good at and what they are not so good at based on differences in biological sex. For example, physical labor to carry heavy equipment may be more suited to men, while the emphasis on community building and information sharing may be a female trait. It is the role of management to bridge the gap in requests for information between the two groups. If we understand each other’s differences and divide the workload appropriately, I think we can minimize the disadvantages caused by gender.
I feel really lucky. I am thankful every day that I am able to balance raising my children while continuing to do the work I love.
――Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us.