Summary
- Studio MAPPA's reputation as an amazing anime studio is overshadowed by the controversy surrounding its toxic work environment for animators.
- Animators at Studio MAPPA are overworked and underpaid, and they often vent their frustration on social media.
- Although Studio MAPPA attempted to address the issues by creating a better workplace environment, the problems persisted and were evident in the production of Jujutsu Kaisen season 2, which caused a full meltdown of the staff.
Studio MAPPA is one of the biggest anime studios of the past decade, but they’re also one of the most controversial. Since its establishment, MAPPA has produced one hit anime after another, their most notable work including Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, and Attack on Titan season 4. With high-quality animation and overall direction, their anime always have incredible production values and are always the talk of each anime season, but unfortunately not always for the right reasons.
Studio MAPPA has more than earned its reputation as an amazing anime studio, but that’s also led to it becoming one of the most controversial. While the anime that MAPPA produces is always of consistently high quality, the controversy stems from what happens behind the scenes, as Studio MAPPA has continually been outed for creating a toxic work environment for animators in recent years. This, unfortunately, isn’t a unique problem to MAPPA and is very emblematic of the issues that plague modern anime production, in general, but MAPPA’s issues have gotten the most public attention, and that’s tough to think about for a studio responsible for so many big hits.
15 Best Studio MAPPA Anime
With around 50 anime series, Studio MAPPA's best anime run the absolute gamut from gory action, to unique idol series, and even to standard shonen.How Studio MAPPA Created A Toxic Work Environment For Its Animators
Overworking and low wages makes working for MAPPA a nightmare.
The first thing that needs to be addressed is how, exactly, Studio MAPPA creates a toxic work environment for its animators. According to freelance animator Mushiyo, MAPPA continually overworks their staff, with animators having to work overnight to fix drawings until the sun rises and not properly training animators before assigning them work. Teruyuki Omine, an episode director and animator for Attack on Titan season 4, once infamously tweeted in 2022 that he wasn’t able to go home for three days, so there seems to be some definite truth to the idea that Studio MAPPA is overworking its employees to the point of abuse.
Adding to that are accusations that Studio MAPPA doesn’t pay its animators a fair wage. Animator Ippei Ichii alleged that MAPPA was allowing Netflix to pay only the bare minimum amount of money per cut when MAPPA was working on Yasuke, and the claims of low pay have been substantiated by several animators repeatedly. With all of that taken into account, it’s clear that MAPPA’s toxic work environment stems from a combination of overworking their animators and paying them far too little for the quality of work they’re expected to deliver.
Studio MAPPA Made A Seemingly Genuine Attempt To Fix Things
Things briefly seemed to get better at MAPPA, but it didn't last.
In 2021, in response to the growing criticism of their workplace environment, Studio MAPPA announced plans to create a “Studio Annex” building for their animators. The Studio Annex was said to have features built around cultivating a positive workplace environment such as warm, wooden desks, an open-space lounge, and even a shop and café that would also be open to the public. Considering the timing of the announcement, there was a definite sense of it being done for damage control, but it was still good that MAPPA seemed to be taking steps to be a better company than they were before.
How Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Broke Studio MAPPA
Jujutsu Kaisen's high quality came at the expense of the animators.
Unfortunately, Jujutsu Kaisen season 2’s production would show that Studio MAPPA still hadn’t truly fixed anything. In the middle of season 2, it suddenly came out that Studio MAPPA made animators sign an NDA about Jujutsu Kaisen’s production, and many animators involved with season 2 confirmed that MAPPA was still forcing an unreasonable amount of work on them for an unreasonably small amount of pay. This was glaringly obvious to anyone who looked at the credits for each episode; later episodes in season 2 would often feature dozens of key animators, which was a sign of serious production issues.
All of this came to a head with Jujutsu Kaisen season 2, episode #14. Episode #14 was very clearly a step down from the high quality of season 2, featuring none of the stellar choreography and direction, even having blatantly still shots at certain points. Episode #14 was criticized so heavily that the director felt it necessary to apologize for doing a bad job. Considering Studio MAPPA’s history, the blame should be solely on the toxic work environment they’ve done too little to fix, and the following developments proved this to be true.
Jujutsu Kaisen season 2, episode #14 turned out to just be the tipping point of the problems. In the weeks to follow, multiple Jujutsu Kaisen animators had a collective meltdown on X where they complained about being overworked to the point of requesting a delay, only to be denied one by the production committee. The anime has already taken a notable dip in quality in response to this, and episode #17 was even said to only be 30% done when it aired. It's clear that Studio MAPPA's toxic work environment has long since ceased sustainability, and it's hard to imagine things being able to continue like this.
Studio MAPPA’s Issues Are Far Too Common In Anime
MAPPA's problems are sadly shared by many studios and production companies.
The issues plaguing Studio MAPPA are unfortunately common in the anime industry. One Piece animator Henry Thurlow, for example, has previously commented on the poor working conditions of the anime industry, and he’s even been hospitalized multiple times because of how exhausting his work has been. Sword Art Online animator Shingo Adachi has also stated that because of how many anime are produced every year, studios rely largely on “essentially unpaid freelancers”, so even if the show someone works on is a hit, the staff are likely to not make anything close to a profit off of it.
If there’s any anime that best exemplifies the problems with modern anime production, however, it would be Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, which ironically is also a satire about Japan's toxic work culture. In addition to not even completing the animation for its opening until episode #9, episodes were constantly being delayed to the point that Zom 100 couldn’t finish airing in the summer 2023 season and will have to marathon its final three episodes on Christmas. Much of that stems from this being the first full production by Bug Films, so it’s a case of a studio expecting too much from an inexperienced staff, something that Studio MAPPA, unfortunately, isn’t the only studio to be guilty of doing.
Zom 100 Finally Returns With New Episodes For A Christmas Special
The last three episodes of Zom 100 were put on a hiatus due to production issues but finally get a release date for Christmas.In recent years, the extreme amount of toxicity that goes into the creative industry has become increasingly publicized, and anime has been no exception. While there are plenty of studios that treat their animators fairly, Studio MAPPA is not one of them, with the studio cultivating a toxic work environment centered around terrible schedules and pay, and that’s even bled into the quality of their anime. What makes it worse is that Studio MAPPA is hardly an outlier for this kind of practice in the anime industry, and it’s clear that if something doesn’t change soon, the industry will get increasingly worse to the point of being impossible to maintain.
Sources: Anime News Network (1), (2), (3), (4); Reddit (1), (2), (3); IGN India, Vox.
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