Anime animator reveals dreams of being strangled over huge workloads

An animator from the anime studio Shaft posted about the stress of working in the medium, stating he’d had dreams of strangulation, and was told he’d be “erased” from the industry for not meeting targets.

Hiroto Nagata, who’s worked on a number of anime shows for Shaft, including RWBY: Ice Queendom and Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story, made a now-deleted pair of posts on X/Twitter about how his position has been affecting him mentally.

In the first tweet, he wrote that he dreamed of someone from his company strangling him, adding that the feeling lingered after he woke up, but a trip to the hospital showed no health issues. A follow-up confirmed this was due to stringent job requirements, where deadlines loom constantly.

“I dreamed about getting strangled by a person in my company and even after I woke up it still hurts for some reason,” he said, as posted on Reddit. “Since that day I’ve had this suffocating feeling as if someone was pressing on my throat. Of course, I got worried and went to the hospital to get it checked, but there was nothing wrong with it.”

In the next post, he added that his position in the anime industry has been threatened if he can’t meet standards. “The production manager says, ‘If you don’t do well this time, you’ll be erased from the industry,’ so I’m working while crying, telling myself that if I don’t do my best, I’ll be erased, erased,” a repost on Reddit reads.

Reports have circulated about harsh conditions within the anime industry for years, with Studio MAPPA, responsible for Jujutsu Kaisen and other juggernauts, being the subject of recent allegations regarding crunch and low wages.

A study conducted by the Nippon Anime and Film Culture Association warned the industry could “collapse” if conditions aren’t improved, since institutional knowledge and long-term careers are becoming rarer and rarer.

For more on anime, why not check out everything we know about Tower of God Season 2, Solo Leveling Season 2, and other upcoming anime this year.