"Anime’s structural iniquities stem back to Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy and the “god of manga.” Tezuka was responsible for an endless catalog of innovations and precedents in manga, Japanese comics, and anime, onscreen animation. In the early 1960s, with networks unwilling to take the risk on an animated series, Tezuka massively undersold his show to get it on air. “Basically, Tezuka and his company were going to take a loss for the actual show,” said Michael Crandol, an assistant professor of Japanese studies at Leiden University. “They planned to make up for the loss with Astro Boy toys and figures and merchandise, branded candy. … But because that particular scenario worked for Tezuka and the broadcasters, it became the status quo.” Tezuka’s company made up the deficit and the show was a success, but he unknowingly set a dangerous precedent: making it impossible for those who followed in his footsteps to earn a living wage. Diane Wei Lewis points out in a recent study that women, who often worked on animation from home, were especially vulnerable to exploitation and paid even less. Nowadays, when production committees set the budget for shows, there is a long-established precedent to. The revenue is divided up among the television networks, manga publishers, and toy companies. “The parent companies make money from the merchandising tie-ins,” Crandol said, “but the budget for the rank-and-file animators is separate.” “These prices are so ridiculous because they’re still based on what Tezuka came up with,” said Thurlow. “And back then, the drawings were very simple … you had a circle head and dot eyes, and maybe you can draw an in-between in 10 minutes. I could earn some money at that pace … but Japanese anime, [now] one drawing is so detailed. You’ve worked for an hour for two bucks.”"