Netflix is offering a tuition program to students in Japan who are interested in learning to make anime. The program will award tuition to about ten students, including western students residing in Japan who may be interested.

I was immediately suspicious of Netflix’s motives, because there’s a potential for it to be about more than increasing the potential for new programming. After all, anime is one of the great forms of entertainment left that still hasn’t been poisoned by western intersectional politics. Because western entertainment companies are obsessed with activism (at the expense of the product itself), I’m not warm to the idea of western entertainment companies increasing their presence in Japan.

However, as far as that goes, there really isn’t much to worry about. For one thing, Japanese animators mainly produce anime for Japanese audiences. Anime is largely produced from a position of Japanese sensibility, and as I’ve pointed out before, even younger Japanese viewers are treated to content that is more mature compared to what Americans see in the “CalArts” style.

It’s one of the reasons why more western youngsters are turning to anime for entertainment. It’s easier to take anime seriously, because anime takes its viewers seriously.

Another, more compelling reason is that Americans wouldn’t be interested in working in anime once they discover that in Japanese animation, there’s no work-life balance, and the pay is dreadful.

Your typical Japanese animator works shifts as long as 16-hours. Because they’re usually allowed to sleep at their desks, many Japanese animators don’t bother renting a home, but instead spend days at a time at their workplace.

They’re not payed very well, either. Japanese animators usually get paid the equivalent of a few dollars an hour. But because they’d have little need to buy a car or pay rent, that income isn’t necessarily earmarked. By the way, I’m not kidding.

Compare this to the typical American wage expectation. What Americans want is a house, a car or two, and to support a medium-size family, and have disposable income on top of that. The wages of a Japanese animator are almost never enough to support anything resembling this.

In light of this, you might wonder why anyone in Japan would make anime for a living. The ones that make anime do so because they like doing it. They’d pretty much have to, because if they decided to do so professionally, it usually takes over their lives for as long as they continue in it.

TL;DR: An American who saw what being a Japanese animator was really like would be strongly unlikely to want to try it for a living.

If it’s a testimonial you want, an American actually did succeed in being hired to make anime in Japan, and here is a link to a story about him (warning: links to Buzzfeed).

Considering all this, I seriously doubt that American intersectional insanity would stand a chance of ruining anime anytime soon.