Exploitation of anime creators prompts investigation by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission 

The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) announced on January 29 that it has launched an investigation into unfair trade practices in the domestic anime and film industries. 

The agency will investigate the transactions between creatives (such as animators) and production companies in charge of projects. The JFTC’s Secretary General Tetsuya Fujimoto commented that “It has been brought to our attention that profits [from anime and film production] are not being sufficiently distributed to the production site” (source: Asahi Shimbun). 

The JFTC will look into issues such as companies imposing unfairly low wages on creators, making verbal contracts with no written evidence, cancelling production orders without reason, and demanding retakes/corrections without compensation. They have made an open call for creators in the entertainment field to report such practices and will be compiling a report by the end of 2025. The aforementioned issues will be investigated under the Antimonopoly Act, Subcontract Act and Freelance Act. 

Through the investigation, the agency hopes to promote fair transactions in the entertainment field and improved working conditions for creators. 

On a related note, the JFTC recently cracked down on Cover Corp, owner of the major VTuber agency Hololive Productions. In a warning issued to the company, it was reported that Cover’s contractors were made to do free revisions of delivered 2D and 3D artwork that were not according to initial project specifications. This allegedly happened to 23 creators on 243 separate occasions.