The anime industry continues to grow, and the joint venture of CloverWorks, Wit Studio, Aniplex, and Shueisha, are looking to push the industry even further with the establishment of JOEN.
JOEN is a joint anime production company that handles the business and day-to-day operations involving its parent companies, while also aiming to standardize the industry. If this project succeeds, it is possible that the future of these company’s projects will run much smoother, and other animation studios may adopt a similar, and more positive work culture.
▍About JOEN Anime Company
JOEN Anime Company is being founded with the sole purpose of focusing on a few key objectives. They stated that the new company will focus on planning TV anime series, anime films, and shorts. The business will also be involved in development, production, and finalization when amongst the many talents across the parent companies.
The company also wants to address many of the issues notorious, in the anime industry such as non-equal pay, unpaid overtime, gender discrimination, and a crunch culture. The company hopes to be able to extend its reach out to other animation studios, to be able to consolidate and provide a fairer distribution of profits among all of the creators.
The company’s name JOEN is actually a play on the way it would be pronounced as a kanji, such as either 助演,助円, or 助縁 in Japanese which implies a supporting role, support in smooth facilitation, and support through connections. The name is also a play on the word JOIN, where if you add 3 arrows to it, it becomes JOEN. The arrows/lines are symbolic of the legend of the three arrows, implying unity and teamwork. In this case, the three arrows are represented by the collaboration between animation studios, producers, and publishers.
It is great for a group of some of the largest anime companies to want to consolidate and aim to standardize a beloved, but problematic industry, I hope we will soon have a future where anime staff are all able to be treated fairly and can work on their passions while still being able to maintain a healthy lifestyle.
