The anime industry
is facing a silent but devastating crisis: there are too many projects and too
few hands to draw them. Faced with this reality, TMS Entertainment,
the legendary studio behind immortal franchises such as Detective Conan and Anpanman,
has decided to look beyond its borders to secure its future.
On January
8, the Japanese company officially announced a commercial partnership
with R. Animation, a Taiwan-based studio founded
in 2018. The goal is not simply to outsource cheap labor, but to share know-how
and workflows to create a "stable, high-quality" production system.
This measure
responds to a structural tension in Japan: with a global demand
that exceeds 300 degrees per year and a local workforce that is aging without
enough replacements, studios are forced to look for reliable partners abroad to
avoid bottlenecks.
Youth and
talent at R. Animation
The chosen
partner, R. Animation, stands out for its youth and technical
capacity in 2D production. With a crew of more than 40 people and
an average age of less than 30, the Taiwanese studio has already collaborated
on multiple Japanese productions. Their model is based on recruiting art
students and training them intensively, something that TMS Entertainment values
to maintain the visual consistency of their works.
Towards the
"Anime SDGs"
This move is part
of a larger trend where giants such as Toho or Toei
Animation are establishing bases in Thailand or the Philippines. TMS
has framed this initiative under its vision of "Anime SDGs"
(Anime Sustainable Development Goals), seeking to balance creative quality with
sustainable labor practices, ceasing to see foreign studios as simple
subcontractors to turn them into vital partners in the creative process.
