[In spite of what the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry would have you believe about "Cool Japan," the anime industry is in serious trouble. Perhaps the biggest problem is that appallingly low salaries have hollowed out the talent pool to the point where even Academy Award winning directors like Hayao Miyazaki can't pull together enough people to animate an entire film by hand anymore. But finally, it seems, the Japanese government has started putting their money where their mouth is. In an effort to groom more key animators, who create the key cel frames required to make any anime film, the Agency for Cultural Affairs commissioned the creation of four short animated films. The stipulation for receiving the 3.8 million yen subsidies was that each production trained five or more young animators. According to the Asahi.com article, the trainees spent several months under the tutelage of experienced anime directors learning the ropes of key animation. Dubbed "Project A," details can be found on the Janica website. The four films are "Kizuna Ichigeki" (Ascension), "Ojiisan no Lamp" (Telecom Animation Film), "Banno Yasai NinNin Man" (P.A. Works), and "Tansu Watashi" (Production IG). A trailer for the films can be seen here, and they will be airing both on TV and in a limited arthouse theater run this week. Is this a ray of sunshine among the storm clouds hanging over the anime world, or is it too little too late? It's hard to tell. There's no question that it's a step in the right direction, but there's also no question that it addresses the symptoms (the shrinking talent pool) rather than the root causes (a production pipeline that strips studios of their royalties and vitality). It's going to take more than subsidies to change the status quo, and it's telling that this tiny bit of good news is the best to come out of the industry in a long while.](http://altjapan.typepad.com/my_weblog/2011/03/project-a.html#comments)