[Senkusha]

There are many career opportunities within the anime industry.  I would like to outline just a few of the possibilities that exist, however, I want to highlight these jobs as not working as an employee, but rather as a passion.  So, first we need a few definitions and a shift in our thinking paradigm.

Personally, I see within the next 20 years (possibly much sooner than this), with the fruition of Artificial Intelligence, other technologies, and the current in-sustainability of the World's [Capitalist] Economy and Business Model, the collapse of the typical 40-hour work week, and working for an employer as a whole.  This means that we as People, as Human Beings need to adapt to a new way of living, and that does NOT involve slaving away for the almighty Dollar for somebody else's interests.  I believe that the Workforce needs to shift from an Employee mindset to that of a Contractor mindset.  The difference being, that an employee is given one financial opportunity from one resource, whereas a contractor is given many possible financial opportunities from many resources.  And a primary difference between these two mindsets is that an employee is given a set number of hours to work for a set number of financial compensations, but a contractor negotiates for a task to perform for a determined set of hours for a requested number of financial compensations.

Now that we have that defined, let's take a look at the Anime Industry business model.  There are many examples of this.  For starters, if you'll notice that many anime series are "projects".  For example, my favorite the Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Project.  This is a designation as an LLC (Limited Liability Company), a business entity structure used primarily to act as a legal container for any resources generated from the creation of the anime product.  This protects the people involved with this project from any legal ramifications, such as inadvertent copyright infringement.  Even each additional sequel has it's own "project".  A project is usually a small number of staff members, each member takes on a few different roles, but each person is only crafting a specialty skill-set for the project.  This allows the staff members to concentrate on what they are not only good at doing, but what they are passionate about.

So the first thing you're going to want to do, even before we delve into exactly what you're going to be doing, you'll want to be thinking about a Studio name (an LLC name or business name).  Consider what State you want to incorporate in.  Note that you don't need to incorporate in the State you live in, or even the same country that your a citizen of.  There are a number of reasons for these considerations, most notably, start-up cost, taxes, and legal protections.  A quick Google search can show you other sites that have updated information on all of this information.  Once you decide on where you're going to incorporate, you can usually hire a company to found the company.  Years ago, I used one such service and for $600-ish, within a week I had my first company incorporated, filed with the state, the IRS, and all the founding documents ready to go, and I could open my doors to start collecting revenue.  Note that there are different companies that do this, and depending on where you decide to incorporate, will determine the final cost for using one of these companies.

Now let's look at some of the exciting opportunities that we can do for a career in this awesome industry!  The good news is that this is not a very niche career field.  Just about anything you can imagine, from Animator to Marketing, Author to Accountant, all have roles within this industry.  I'm only going to highlight some of the roles that you can do as an individual specialist (contractor) to get us started.  Remember, we're not going to be working for someone else as our boss, we're our own boss, we set our own schedule, and our own pay rate.  And just like doing anything in life, you're going to want to do additional research, and practice your chose skills so you know how long it takes you to complete a task before bidding, or even creating an entire project.

Animator --

Author --

Character Designer --

Colorist --

Mangaka (Illustrator)  --

Marketing / Advertiser --

Musician --

Scriptwriter --

SFX Technician (Sound Effects) --

Translator --

Voice Actor --

[ZandraJoi]

A great guideline. I think what helps is to think small & start small & work your way up. Get your name & "projects" out there as reference. The more people see your work, the more apt you would be hired for some jobs.