The anime and manga industries are usually very demanding jobs, and more than once we have seen cases of exploitation and even scams.
Those who lend their voices to the characters do not usually suffer this kind of pressure, but from time to time there are exceptions.
Recently, an anime in production had to be cancelled after it was revealed that it intended to charge the actors a fee to work.
According to the Japanese site J-Cast, the Machine to Hearth anime was canceled after a possible scam was revealed by the production.
It all started when a vacancy appeared requesting voice actors for the project, where they offered to appear on television with well-known idols, in addition to being present in launches related to the project.
The problem began some time later, when those selected received an email where the production asked them to pay a fee of 198,000 yen, which is around $1833 US Dollars.
This anime promised to air within the Topic Magazine program; however, the programming department stated that they had no idea of such collaboration.
All these irregularities led to an internal investigation by the TV Saitama television team.
Due to the situation, a statement was issued where they regretted that their name was used for something so regrettable, and clarified that they had nothing to do with said incident.
The statement also mentioned how “It is very disappointing that an incident that distrusts the broadcasting industry has occurred in connection with the program we are broadcasting.”
As far as is known, the sum they intended to charge was the equivalent of the value of fifty DVDs of said anime.
We hope that the authorities will take action on the matter and clarify what this whole situation was about, although it has all the earmarks of being a scam.
