Fascinating video. You hear about the long hours and substandard working conditions for the anime industry, but it's rare to get a candid look like this. Everyone works their butts off in an endless grind to make it in time for the next rapidly approaching deadline. All-nighters, eating convenience store food as he hikes between meetings, dismal offices, and everyone looks worn out. But they still go for perfectionism within the budget and time they have available to them.
Have to wonder why the work can't be done without draining every ounce of life from the staff, as that's never optimal for long-term performance. But clearly they're very passionate about anime, and tolerate the burden.
By contrast, there's another one of these for a figure sculptor who designs Nendoroids at Good Smile Company, and it seems they're a successful enough company (I would hope so!) to have a decent looking office space, and the sculptor gets out in the evening rather than 3am. The staff seem proud of their figure designs and keep loads of merch at their desks.
The subject of the video goes home only to jump straight back into sculpting a personal project. That kind of intense focus on mastery of a chosen domain is commonplace in Japan.
Conspicuously, the resin 3d printers at the GSC office have no ventilation and the staff members spray highly toxic lacquer paints without any real PPE, just an open spray booth. OSHA would faint. They're going to have catastrophic health problems down the road.
But, setting all that aside, it's cool to see their process.
