CloverWorks over the years has established itself as one of the most prolific and talented studios in the anime industry, as it has been responsible for delivering excellent quality anime with magnificent stories such as Darling in The Franxx, Bocchi The Rock! My Dress-Up Darling and Spy x Family all of them of great television and economic success, but it seems that this same luck in their productions does not smile equally to the economic structure of the talented Japanese animation studio, as it has been announced that in the last report of this year’s fiscal period in Japan, CloverWorks has reported losses that jeopardize its operations.
CloverWorks has a fiscal deficit that could put it at risk!
In the popular Japanese forum Yaraon! a small extract of one of the fiscal reports by CloverWorks in the year 2023 was released, where it was shown that the studio reported a loss of 29 million yen, a situation that immediately alarmed the otakus in the same forum, they could not believe that this situation was happening to such a successful studio and where they quickly released comments with those who could be some of those responsible for this terrible event.
As we all know, studios have a production committee for anime that is in charge of studying the market value of the work, if an adaptation will be successful, as well as evaluating its possible profits and losses in case they occur, also has the task of raising funds to be used for the production of these same anime.
These same committees do not enjoy popularity among anime fans over there, as they are also responsible for some bad decisions that have led to some very popular and appreciated works to fall into disgrace, this is where the otakus in the forum have pointed the blame, “Isn’t the animation industry poor because of the production committee system?“, “Only the top ones get fat and the bottom ones suffer losses no matter how good the production is… it’s crazy this industry.“, are some of the comments that we can find.
Some more commented on the CloverWorks situation “I think it’s the worst system that has destroyed the animation industry.”, “It’s strange that a company with such a good track record as CloverWorks is still in the red.”, others applauded what some anime are doing with this system, “However, Bocchi The Rock! and others are getting rid of the production committee system, so maybe the world is changing.”
Undoubtedly a situation that if it continues in the future and that apparently affects several studios in the industry, could trigger a crisis in this medium that we love and love so much, something that undoubtedly should be rethought so that everyone has lower profits and there are fewer situations of labor exploitation that have been very well known within several very famous studios. As a curious fact: Evangelion was the first anime that needed a production committee to raise funds and carry out its animation project, from there these committees became a standard in the industry.
