As it stands, Shirobako (stylized SHIROBAKO) was, and still is, my favorite anime that aired in 2014. P.A. Works, which has produced other good anime like Charlotte and Nagi no Asukara (and has produced some real stinkers like The Day I Became a God and the infamous Glasslip), has not had anything as good as Shirobako since it aired. They know it as well, since they not-so-subtly tried to copy that formula for Sakura Quest, a 2017 anime that isn’t bad per se, but at the best is a Shirobako derivative, and is quite average. What makes Shirobako so enjoyable is a multitude of things. For one, it’s an anime that ‘normal people’ could watch and enjoy. You won’t have to shy away and stealthily change the screen to your GMail inbox when your roommate, partner, parent, etc. walks in your room. While it doesn’t go in on being ‘moe’, it also doesn’t go the route of being so rigid and tedious that it resembles a documentary. Characters are relatable and can be enjoyed for the real-life qualities that they have — not for being waifu-bait. An anime about an anime studio producing an anime is also an interesting concept (and funny for meta purposes). Whatever it is, Shirobako does it well.
Shirobako starts with a cut to five girls (Aoi Miyamori, Ema Yasuhara, Shizuka Sakaki, Misa Toudo, and Midori Imai) that are members of the Animation Club at their high school. The first five minutes show them making a short anime for their high school’s cultural festival. All five girls have aspirations to work in the anime industry. Ema and Misa want to work as animators, Shizuka wants to be a seiyuu, and Midori wants to be a scriptwriter. Only Aoi has no idea what specific field of anime production she wants to pursue (which lands her the scorn of a potential employer when she says that she’ll ‘do anything’ for the anime production company she’s applying for).
Fast forward around two years later, Aoi has landed a job in the industry at Musashino Animation as a Production Assistant. Her only friend that works with her is Midori, being a Key Animator. Musashino Animation, often shortened to MusAni, is a fledgling anime studio that only recently has gotten a chance to redeem itself by getting the chance to produce ‘Exodus!’. The only other girl with a job in the animation industry is Misa, who works at a company doing 3D Animation. Shizuka works part-time at a restaurant, still trying to break into the industry, and Midori is at university. Ninety-five percent of the anime is focused on Aoi (as she’s the main character), but her high school friends do come in handy for her at times.
Along with her friends, Aoi works with many people at MusAni. So many that if I listed them all out, it would fill a whole page. I could spend ten thousand words describing all of them if I wanted to, but that would be boring. The ones that are important are: the fan favorites, who are Rinko Ogasawara, an Animation Supervisor who always dresses in gothic lolita style; Andou Tsubaki, a beginner that works in Production Support that gets brought on in the second half of the anime; and Erika Yano, a fellow Production Assistant who often gives Aoi useful advice when she’s in a pickle. There’s also Tarou Takanashi, a fellow Production Assistant who’s annoying yet lovable moron; Seiichi Kinoshita, Director whose past mistakes directing anime make him an infamous director in the industry; Shigeru Sugie, Senior Key Animator (keyword Senior), who has decades worth of experience in animation that he occasionally doles out to younger animators (he’s also the only person at MusAni who has a schedule that sort of resembles a 9–5). These are only a few of the people that Aoi works with, but they’re all worth getting to know.
At the beginning of the series, we’re dropped in the middle of the production of the anime ‘Exodus!’. Aoi and MusAni staff are behind on production due to last-minute changes. Producing an anime is always a race against the clock, a ticking time bomb where one thing going wrong could force the anime studio to have to release a recap episode or a half-finished episode. Aoi’s job as a Production Assistant is keen on not only making sure that her schedule is on time, but other’s (Directors, Key Animators, Subcontractors, etc.) are as well. Shirobako displays the difficulties of producing an anime; the first cour dealing with internal conflicts, and the second dealing with external conflicts.
Along with the overarching conflicts that are part of everyday anime production, there are secondary plot points that run across all of the anime. From learning how to draw animation cuts faster, dealing with companies that are subcontracted with your company, 2D animation versus 3D animation, and the granddaddy of them all: TIME CRUNCH. One thing that’s universal for the anime industry, no matter what your position is, is that you’ll experience the dreaded time crunch trying to wrap up a project. Sometimes it’s self-inflicted, caused by months of procrastination and inclusion (and brain fog, which isn’t necessarily self-inflicted). Other times, it’s because of mismanagement by others or quickly changing situations that change up the whole timeline. Aoi, being a newbie to the industry and a striver, works long hours most days. She’s at work by 9 AM almost every day for the morning meeting, and works until well after the sunsets.
For most anime, having an ensemble cast works against it, but in Shirobako’s case, it’s quite the opposite. Having a small cast would cheapen the feel, and erase the immersive value that Shirobako has. Shirobako manages to be realistic (mostly, I’ll get to that later) while still being fun to watch. It isn’t as focused on the characters themselves, such as anime in the same ballpark as New Game!, which is an alright anime, but has as realistic of a take on creating games as the movie Grandma’s Boy (just replace moe girls with 00s stoner culture). At the same time, it isn’t so keyed-in on the actual process of making an anime that it resembles a boring documentary on YouTube that ninety percent of the people watching do for ASMR purposes. While it’s a love letter to the industry, it doesn’t in any way resemble propaganda or make the idea of working in the anime industry desirable.
You may ask, why does Aoi put herself through all of this? Having little to no work-life balance, working nearly every day up to 12-hours or more, having the stress of being responsible for delivering and receiving materials related to the anime, sourcing out potential people that could be contracted, and so forth. The simple answer is that she loves doing it. Creating anime is what her life’s goal has been for who knows how long. Being a Production Assistant, like many jobs at an animation studio, is a ‘bad job’, but it’s a different type of bad job than your typical bad job. The difference between the bad jobs that you’ve had (for the younger readers, the bad jobs you’ll likely have in the future) and the one Aoi has is that she’s fully invested in the finished product. Unlike a bad job at a retail store or whatever, where the ‘finished product’ is your bosses getting a bonus (and you getting a twenty-cent raise if you’re lucky), everyone at MusAni is emotionally (and some financially) invested in producing anime. And also like most bad jobs, MusAni is a ‘family’, but in this case, it’s actually somewhat true. Everyone has the same goal of making good anime. They knew going in that the anime industry isn’t a lucrative industry for many. The lion’s share of salary goes to those in the top echelon of an anime studio, like Chief Animators or Directors. Seiyuu make the most, since they’re often the face of an anime production-wise, their voice bringing in dedicated fan bases that might otherwise not be interested in said anime.
For Production Assistants like Aoi, the average they make is roughly $19,500 a year (2014 numbers, not accounting for inflation or rising pay rates), which would be $9.34 an hour if she worked forty-hour weeks, which we already know she doesn’t. It’s even worse for her friend Ema. Animators make on average $9,400 a year (again, 2014 numbers, etc.), which are starvation wages. Luckily for Ema, her parents support her financially. The only thing that makes Aoi’s salary not look as bad is the fact that the price of living in Tokyo is cheaper than most major American cities. Aoi has a small 1-bedroom apartment that’s somewhere outside of central Tokyo, which I assume is somewhere around $600 a month if the small amount of research I did is correct. Compare that to American cities like New York or San Francisco, where rent for a similar place would be around $2,000, or maybe more. While Aoi should be paid more, her living conditions aren’t as bad as they look. She still works too much though.
What makes Shirobako such an enjoyable watch is the amount of detail they put into showing the process of an anime being produced. As I stated before, it has the perfect split on time spent working on the anime and time focused on office relations, the lives of those at MusAni, Aoi’s increasingly non-existent social life, and so forth. The writing is also excellent, with MusAni staff bouncing ideas off one another, bickering, and sometimes even fighting. None of this dialogue seems stiff or shoehorned in, and can be quite hilarious at times. Of course, this anime is about making anime, so directors and scriptwriters will have more of a reference point than your average anime. They do manage to find the fun in the many banal meetings that MusAni holds (seemingly every episode), and get the viewer to embrace the absurdity that is producing a seasonal anime.
Another thing that makes Shirobako fun is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. It doesn’t do this as a reflex in the middle of a serious scene, but to add a sort of flair. The first scene in the anime (past the high school part) shows Aoi racing another Production Assistant from a rival animation studio, both driving like they’re characters from Initial D. There’s also Aoi’s two plush toys, who often come to life (in a metaphysical scene) to either talk to each other or to talk to Aoi when she’s in a rut. Along with visions that seemingly whole groups can see, someone working at quite literally a lightning pace, and other goofs, Shirobako has many scenes that aren’t meant to be taken literally. They’re meant to symbolize something.
A reason that I like Shirobako that may be weird is that it shows that while Aoi is a go-getter that will ‘do her best’, it takes a team to complete a project. Much lazier anime would give Aoi a deus ex machina-like power, but as you already can assume, Shirobako isn’t a lazy anime. Many of the issues in the anime aren’t solved by her — they’re solved by others with little help from Aoi. Other times, while she isn’t the one that solves the problem per se, she gets huge hints from unexpected people, and does in a sense save the day. The important thing is that Aoi is still a regular person. The only things remarkable about her are her driving skills and her drive to make anime. She’s someone, for better or worse, who still has the dream of producing the same anime she made with her friends in high school, but in a professional setting. While she can be worn thin, she hasn’t become jaded by the anime industry, which is notorious for overworking staff (Animators usually get the brunt of this, but Aoi also has to work long days. For recent examples of staff overwork, look up examples related to Madhouse Production and Wonder Egg Priority) and not having much room for moving up the hierarchy. She’s relatable.
It’s hard to find any flaws with Shirobako. While it isn’t a perfect anime, it’s the best anime to come out in 2014, and the best workplace slice-of-life anime I’ve seen. A sequel, Shirobako: The Movie, was released last year in Japan, and was recently released in theaters in America. While I personally thought it was nowhere as good as the anime, most others enjoyed it. If you’re a fan of slice-of-lives, and you haven’t seen Shirobako yet, then you’ve been missing out. Shirobako is both a fun and serious look into the anime industry, with all of its quirks and goofs, eccentrics and weirdos, and highs and lows.
