In the 1970s and 1980s, the animation industry in Japan saw the emergence

of distinctive consumers, called “anime fans.” This brought quantitative and

qualitative changes in products in the animation market. The aim of this paper

is to reveal how animators dealt with this change and how they reformed their

working culture. The authors have shown that the working culture underpinned

market movements in the 1970s and 1980s.

　　Historically, animators preferred working as freelancers on a piece-rate

system rather than as regular workers on a fixed salary. This was due to their

meritocratic occupational norm. However, the number of animation programs

increased during the anime-boom period, and animators were forced to cooperate

with a much broader workforce to produce many programs suitable for the

diverse demands of fans. This limited animators’ discretion. In this study, the

authors wanted to understand how it was possible for the animation industry to

continue supplying the workforce necessary to adapt to market changes during

this time.

　　For this purpose, the authors analyzed texts in animation magazines from

the perspective of the labor process theory, which explains the relationship

between workstyles and the transformation of markets. One of the key concepts

of this approach is workers’ shared norms. The authors also employed

ethnomethodology, which elicits vivid insights regarding such norms, to analyze

round-table talks and interviews with animators working at animation magazines.

　　While animators understood the quantitative expansion of the animation

market as limiting their discretion, there was a disparity in how they coped

with the situation. The older generation recognized their skills in detail and

relied on networks built by longtime co-working. The younger generation

accepted the new situation and found their occupational value in the new working

environment through the occupational image of “the artisan.” This image

reflected the new occupational competence and made the formation of peer

communities of young animators possible. This industrial transformation sustained

the supply of a broad workforce, which drew on various expressions during

the anime-boom period.

　ネット上の配信では，著作権保護を強化しないとビジネスを始められないという意見がある．この背景には，私的コピーによってオリジナルの売上が減少するという認識がある．しかし，私的コピーの被害をテレビアニメを対象に計測してみると，私的コピーがDVD 売上を減らしている効果はほとんど見られない．被害が検出されないなら，社会的には保護強化は必要なく，またビジネス的にも保護強化にこだわらずに配信ビジネスをはじめた方が有利なはずである．

　アニメ産業において制作者が用いるスキルは客観的な形式で表現されないが，同業者内では理解可能な形で共有されているという特徴を有する。本稿では，評価の基準が変わりながらその都度の状況に適切な判断がなされることを意味する「浮動する規範」という考え方に依拠しながら，アニメ制作者の語りに基づいて彼らが理解する実力の内実を明らかにした。その結果，同じ監督層であっても，工程全体を見渡すことを経験した制作進行や撮影職出身者と，作画や映像表現に特化したアニメーター出身者では準拠集団が異なっており，それによって異なる技能観を有していることが明らかになった。さらに，アニメーター同士のスキルはそれぞれ自らを他者から差異化することに形式として理解可能なものとなっていた。こうした知見に基づき，客観化されず関係性に基づくスキルであっても，OJTを通したスキル形成が重要性を持つことを示唆した。