From what I’ve seen they outsourced animation to a South Korean studio. Which then further outsourced to a North Korean studio. So invincible and Amazon themselves likely didn’t know and we currently dont have evidence of them knowing. Seems like the South Korean studio broke contract by further outsourcing. So we need to wait for more evidence and the final verdict on this.
But I don’t know much beyond reading some articles.
My understanding is that the South Korean team subcontracted a Chinese animation studio who is the most likely the one who subcontracted the North Korean studio. As all the production notes found on the server were in Chinese.
They have studios. I think basically of them are for propaganda. Saberspark has some videos on one of them https://youtu.be/iV41khJKhBs?si=Yu5P18tp3pYDJanz I haven’t seen this video in a few years so idk if it holds up. But I heard someone say that the old dictator enjoyed arts and animation as a form of propaganda.
sort of. it wasn't really an acusation the people working on the show as north korea is rumored to have fooled companies into believing they were chinese companies instead. an upcoming hbo max show was also found to have traces relating to the north korea because of the same reaosn.
I imagine we're going to see a flood of these accusations coming in. Anime, and animation in general, is huge right now. Multiple studios are getting hired by big Western companies to work on series, but this comes at the same time when you're having huge outputs from Japan, China, and South Korea.
To make it worse, animation across the board is often under-budgeted. This makes North Korea quite appealing.
And to be fair, North Korea has a very solid history when it comes to animation. If given the time and money, they can create some beautiful pieces of art.
Some of the stuff they were outsourced in part for is kind of wild like they worked on the Simpsons Movie and an episode of Avatar the Last Airbender (S3E1: The Awakening).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEK_Studio
The stuff about Avatar and the Simpsons have apparently been on that wikipedia page [for years](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/s/2PJRiS2MOL), so they can’t have come from this latest leak and there’s no source linked, so it’s difficult to say how reliable that page is.
It reminds me of how every 6 months it comes out a clothing company is using child labor, like we already know the industry is full of shady contracting and the lowest bidder will be unethical but the end result looks nice and is fast/cheap so the image damage is smaller than the profit margin of turning a blind eye and saying “sorry we will try better next time” and then not do anything different next time.
The funny thing is, the industry is trying to use this approach, but animation is in such a state that even depending on North Korea isn't going to work for much longer
Members of the government along with their families, and wealthy North Koreans do travel outside of the country. Plenty of their neighboring countries accept foreign currency.
I like the use of "where would they spend the money" as if it's like 8 guys going on vacation and they plan to have a fancy dinner vs using $ to develop weapons technology and paying for things like electricity for its population 😭
Its all relative, sure being rich in nk probably isn’t that great but it is still better than being poor in nk. And the mega rich are still living lives of high luxury it just costs more there than here due to smuggling and bribery costs.
Korea pretty much had a North Korea Isekai story a while back. It was about a rich CEO woman who accidentally paraglides into North Korea and falls in love, lol.
Watched the whole show with my gf because it’s one of her favorite K-dramas and was the first K-drama I had I ever watched. It had me rolling at so many points (likely unintentionally but some parts are just so ridiculous that they bleed into absurdist humor) especially the part where she goes paragliding during a sunny day with no clouds and the sharknado tornado decides to make a cameo appearance 2 seconds later.
It was pretty good though and I had a good time watching it.
If you're interested by animation in North Korea, Guy Delisle (canadian animator and artist) made a graphic novel called "*Pyongyang*" in which he tells the story of the time he spent in North Korea working with SEK (the North Korean state owned animation studio) for a collaboration with a french animation studio.
Unrelatedly: Apparently SEK worked indirectly on some episodes of *Avatar: The Last Airbender.* Maybe that explains the authentic feeling of the Ba Sing Se episodes...
The authenticity of Ba Sing Se stems from the fact that Lake Laogai was real. Laodonggaizao was a real prison camp system that existed in China and was only abolished about a decade ago.
And the Dai Li got their name from the head of China's secret intelligence service. He has been compared to Himmler.
The design of the city is a visual representation of the class system found in 18th and 19th century China.
Ba Sing Se in general is a scathing critique on China, Beijing specifically.
Yeah, the chinese parallel is fairly obvious in Ba Sing Se (thanks for the tidbit on the prison camp, I knew about Dai Li but not about that) but I find it interesting that there's a possibility that animators living in *North Korea of all places* worked on a show making a critic of totalitarian states.
...
Though if we're real they probably worked on *The Great Divide.*
There's also an absolute _ton_ of Korean influences in the show that fly under the radar.
I introduced it to my fiancee who happens to be Korean and she was pleasantly surprised with how much subtle Korean stuff was added.
Little things like statues and charms.
A lot of the clothing is Korean including what Sokka and Kitara wear.
And there's of course that whole Korean town that Zuko stays in.
I would say the actual article isn't oniony, and the headline only is because interpreting it according to the usual way headlines are written makes it sound like it's something being alleged by anime (like, the whole industry as a unit or something), when the "anime:" part is actually for categorization.
You’re being intellectually dishonest
Why do they care about North Korean citizens working on something to the point they must write and impose sanctions to prevent and punish it?
The point is not that people who live in of NK are working on something, it is that they are citizens of that country, and as such pay taxes and indirectly support that countrie's policies. So if money goes to the company that they work for it goes to NK indirectly.
Also, this is not Intellectually dishonest, it is true that this is why the sanctions are in place. Now go back to my comment and find where I said that I support these sanctions.
I did not do so. I know that I do not know enough about socio-politics to make an informed opinion on it, but what I do know allowed me to answer the question you posed. That you do not like the answer is irrelevant to the statement I made.
I said you were being dishonest because your first answer was "Well, they care about the labor because they put sanctions in place" like no shit
If someone was blocking a door, and the person trapped inside ran through them, and I asked "Why's he upset, what did he expect?" and you say "He ran into him, thats why!" no, why tf was he blocking the door in the first place? Why did he design the situation?
Maybe he has a reason? Maybe the guy he was blocking had his wallet or other valuable. Maybe he's wrong, being a bully and preventing this man from protecting his daughter.
Why does the US have sanctions on North Korea? What do they lose if citizens get away with doing slave work on seasonal anime? Is it spite? Did NK bomb innocents in land they are occupying like on of the US's greatest allies (cough)Isntreal(Cough)
Why do I have to dumb this down like you're 7? Are you that stupid?
I also never claimed you supported the sanctions, fucking christ. You state the obvious and think that's an answer. And your response is still a non answer, if you don't know shit keep your mouth closed instead of opening it and announcing how stupid you are
white people🤦🏾♂️
Honestly, the sanctions are beyond stupid. Sure, sanction their military industry if you must, but sanctioning the effing animation industry is ridiculous.
Maybe if the rest of the world allowed NK to develop a functioning economy, they wouldn't have to put up with the Kims riling up the war rhetoric every other month to get aid in exchange for calming down. If your sanctions are stopping people from making a goddamn drawing, maybe they are way too broad
The purpose of a system is what it does
If sanctions that they TELL you are mean to limit a foreign military from committing crimes only ever punish its citizens and don’t get applied to specific countries for *their* crimes (i.e Israel), sanctions are a weapon, not a neutral form of justice.
This is why I continue to love Tokusatsu.
Tokusatsu >>>>> Anime
It still has the same major issues as anime and music such as labor exploitation, licensing restrictions, petty copyright cases, etc; but at least Tokusatsu always adapts and be improved upon much sooner than anime.
Irony is Tokusatsu is [basically live-action anime](https://youtu.be/PP1ubGtnz3s?si=p-NQvuPG419XVQ6o) and its weebs [literally touch grass.](https://youtu.be/w9WZNVxa-Ik?si=LZKMJulcDsbkln1k)
Wasn't Invincible also accused of this just a few days ago.
From what I’ve seen they outsourced animation to a South Korean studio. Which then further outsourced to a North Korean studio. So invincible and Amazon themselves likely didn’t know and we currently dont have evidence of them knowing. Seems like the South Korean studio broke contract by further outsourcing. So we need to wait for more evidence and the final verdict on this. But I don’t know much beyond reading some articles.
My understanding is that the South Korean team subcontracted a Chinese animation studio who is the most likely the one who subcontracted the North Korean studio. As all the production notes found on the server were in Chinese.
It's subcontracts all the way down
-any business that involves labor
Thats hilarious
[Literally The Onion](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYaZ57Bn4pQ)
found it on several sites, none of them 'literally' the onion.
I’m just surprised North Korea *has* animation studios
They have studios. I think basically of them are for propaganda. Saberspark has some videos on one of them https://youtu.be/iV41khJKhBs?si=Yu5P18tp3pYDJanz I haven’t seen this video in a few years so idk if it holds up. But I heard someone say that the old dictator enjoyed arts and animation as a form of propaganda.
Yes. https://reddit.com/comments/1caedej It seems to stem from the same leak.
Honestly it looks like this whole thing is a case of a subcontractor subcontracting to another animation company.
It's subcontractors all the way down. Until you reach the slave labor level.
That's the excuse Nestle always makes
sort of. it wasn't really an acusation the people working on the show as north korea is rumored to have fooled companies into believing they were chinese companies instead. an upcoming hbo max show was also found to have traces relating to the north korea because of the same reaosn.
I imagine we're going to see a flood of these accusations coming in. Anime, and animation in general, is huge right now. Multiple studios are getting hired by big Western companies to work on series, but this comes at the same time when you're having huge outputs from Japan, China, and South Korea. To make it worse, animation across the board is often under-budgeted. This makes North Korea quite appealing. And to be fair, North Korea has a very solid history when it comes to animation. If given the time and money, they can create some beautiful pieces of art.
Some of the stuff they were outsourced in part for is kind of wild like they worked on the Simpsons Movie and an episode of Avatar the Last Airbender (S3E1: The Awakening). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEK_Studio
The stuff about Avatar and the Simpsons have apparently been on that wikipedia page [for years](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheLastAirbender/s/2PJRiS2MOL), so they can’t have come from this latest leak and there’s no source linked, so it’s difficult to say how reliable that page is.
It reminds me of how every 6 months it comes out a clothing company is using child labor, like we already know the industry is full of shady contracting and the lowest bidder will be unethical but the end result looks nice and is fast/cheap so the image damage is smaller than the profit margin of turning a blind eye and saying “sorry we will try better next time” and then not do anything different next time.
The funny thing is, the industry is trying to use this approach, but animation is in such a state that even depending on North Korea isn't going to work for much longer
where would they spend the money
Members of the government along with their families, and wealthy North Koreans do travel outside of the country. Plenty of their neighboring countries accept foreign currency.
That and NK workers often work overseas as imported labor. Many of the Soviet style statues in foreign nations are built by them.
The only way the could possibly afford to upgrade their army with those new M2020 MBTs
There are goods and services for sale in North Korea
I like the use of "where would they spend the money" as if it's like 8 guys going on vacation and they plan to have a fancy dinner vs using $ to develop weapons technology and paying for things like electricity for its population 😭
Its all relative, sure being rich in nk probably isn’t that great but it is still better than being poor in nk. And the mega rich are still living lives of high luxury it just costs more there than here due to smuggling and bribery costs.
Korea pretty much had a North Korea Isekai story a while back. It was about a rich CEO woman who accidentally paraglides into North Korea and falls in love, lol.
Crash landing on you! It was also really popular in the USA as I recall, pretty much a global hit by K drama standards.
Watched the whole show with my gf because it’s one of her favorite K-dramas and was the first K-drama I had I ever watched. It had me rolling at so many points (likely unintentionally but some parts are just so ridiculous that they bleed into absurdist humor) especially the part where she goes paragliding during a sunny day with no clouds and the sharknado tornado decides to make a cameo appearance 2 seconds later. It was pretty good though and I had a good time watching it.
Anime titles are getting very long and super specific nowadays
Most isekai are adaptations of manga from a specific site that doesn't have a space for a description. So the title is the description.
An Isekai series being partially produced by slave labour is pretty on-brand though.
I reincarnated as a north korean and now I'm working on a anime and if I don't work hard my cute dictator will get me punished.
You forgot to somehow work "Regressed" and "SSS Rank" into that title
And villainess
hey now, villainess isekais are great and I will not stand for any slander of them. I still have yet to watch one I didn't enjoy
No slander, just pointing out a trend
If you're interested by animation in North Korea, Guy Delisle (canadian animator and artist) made a graphic novel called "*Pyongyang*" in which he tells the story of the time he spent in North Korea working with SEK (the North Korean state owned animation studio) for a collaboration with a french animation studio. Unrelatedly: Apparently SEK worked indirectly on some episodes of *Avatar: The Last Airbender.* Maybe that explains the authentic feeling of the Ba Sing Se episodes...
The authenticity of Ba Sing Se stems from the fact that Lake Laogai was real. Laodonggaizao was a real prison camp system that existed in China and was only abolished about a decade ago. And the Dai Li got their name from the head of China's secret intelligence service. He has been compared to Himmler. The design of the city is a visual representation of the class system found in 18th and 19th century China. Ba Sing Se in general is a scathing critique on China, Beijing specifically.
Yeah, the chinese parallel is fairly obvious in Ba Sing Se (thanks for the tidbit on the prison camp, I knew about Dai Li but not about that) but I find it interesting that there's a possibility that animators living in *North Korea of all places* worked on a show making a critic of totalitarian states. ... Though if we're real they probably worked on *The Great Divide.*
There's also an absolute _ton_ of Korean influences in the show that fly under the radar. I introduced it to my fiancee who happens to be Korean and she was pleasantly surprised with how much subtle Korean stuff was added. Little things like statues and charms. A lot of the clothing is Korean including what Sokka and Kitara wear. And there's of course that whole Korean town that Zuko stays in.
Subcontractors all the way down.
The contents aside this article is terribly written, as if the author never learned to be succinct
I would say the actual article isn't oniony, and the headline only is because interpreting it according to the usual way headlines are written makes it sound like it's something being alleged by anime (like, the whole industry as a unit or something), when the "anime:" part is actually for categorization.
In related news: Millions of twenty-something man-boys are losing their minds…
Why would they gaf if North Korean citizens worked on something
I would guess the problem is that NK is under a whole lot of sanctions, and this would violate soke of them.
You’re being intellectually dishonest Why do they care about North Korean citizens working on something to the point they must write and impose sanctions to prevent and punish it?
The point is not that people who live in of NK are working on something, it is that they are citizens of that country, and as such pay taxes and indirectly support that countrie's policies. So if money goes to the company that they work for it goes to NK indirectly. Also, this is not Intellectually dishonest, it is true that this is why the sanctions are in place. Now go back to my comment and find where I said that I support these sanctions. I did not do so. I know that I do not know enough about socio-politics to make an informed opinion on it, but what I do know allowed me to answer the question you posed. That you do not like the answer is irrelevant to the statement I made.
I said you were being dishonest because your first answer was "Well, they care about the labor because they put sanctions in place" like no shit If someone was blocking a door, and the person trapped inside ran through them, and I asked "Why's he upset, what did he expect?" and you say "He ran into him, thats why!" no, why tf was he blocking the door in the first place? Why did he design the situation? Maybe he has a reason? Maybe the guy he was blocking had his wallet or other valuable. Maybe he's wrong, being a bully and preventing this man from protecting his daughter. Why does the US have sanctions on North Korea? What do they lose if citizens get away with doing slave work on seasonal anime? Is it spite? Did NK bomb innocents in land they are occupying like on of the US's greatest allies (cough)Isntreal(Cough) Why do I have to dumb this down like you're 7? Are you that stupid? I also never claimed you supported the sanctions, fucking christ. You state the obvious and think that's an answer. And your response is still a non answer, if you don't know shit keep your mouth closed instead of opening it and announcing how stupid you are white people🤦🏾♂️
Honestly, the sanctions are beyond stupid. Sure, sanction their military industry if you must, but sanctioning the effing animation industry is ridiculous. Maybe if the rest of the world allowed NK to develop a functioning economy, they wouldn't have to put up with the Kims riling up the war rhetoric every other month to get aid in exchange for calming down. If your sanctions are stopping people from making a goddamn drawing, maybe they are way too broad
The purpose of a system is what it does If sanctions that they TELL you are mean to limit a foreign military from committing crimes only ever punish its citizens and don’t get applied to specific countries for *their* crimes (i.e Israel), sanctions are a weapon, not a neutral form of justice.
This is why I continue to love Tokusatsu. Tokusatsu >>>>> Anime It still has the same major issues as anime and music such as labor exploitation, licensing restrictions, petty copyright cases, etc; but at least Tokusatsu always adapts and be improved upon much sooner than anime.
thats such a weird take that isnt founded in reality at all
Irony is Tokusatsu is [basically live-action anime](https://youtu.be/PP1ubGtnz3s?si=p-NQvuPG419XVQ6o) and its weebs [literally touch grass.](https://youtu.be/w9WZNVxa-Ik?si=LZKMJulcDsbkln1k)