I've been working for Madhouse off and on for the past six years. Although the company has treated me well, they don't guarantee that I'll have work 100% of the time. There have been occasions when I've had to return to the U.S. or move to another studio during a slowdown. I still make Madhouse my priority since they are sponsoring my visa, which allows me to work in Japan. Luckily, I've been pretty busy for the past year, but when the first season production of Sōten Kōro ended, my workload lightened accordingly. I decided to take on some additional work to take advantage of the extra time, so last month, I worked on the opening animation for the second season of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, inserted animated shots for a live action film called Orthoros no Inu, and revised a character design for  Naki no Ryu a pachi-slot game animation based on the popular mah-jong manga. The deadlines ended up falling around the same time, and as a result I had to work ridiculously long hours during what was supposed to be a slow period. I regretted it very much at the time, but now that they're all done, I'm glad I did it. After all, I've spent a year and a half working on the same show, and it really was about time I started thinking about what to do next. As a freelancer, it's very important that I work with various studios to maintain existing business relationships and establish new ones, and most studios allow the artists to work on projects other than their own.

I'm sure you've heard of the importance of networking. It means a lot in this line of work, as most gigs are referred through your own network of friends and colleagues. All three jobs I mentioned were offered to me by good friends. It's not that I happen to know these influential people by chance--I owe it mostly to networking. It's something that starts early in an artist's career, beginning with a small group of friends. Such friends eventually gain experience and skills that lead you to an even larger circle of friends and colleagues. Before long, many of them become directors and producers. So, it's not like you have a director or a producer for a friend; what you have is a friend that turned into a director or a producer. As long as you stay on good terms with others and be open to establishing new connections, it's rare that you'd be completely out of work as an animator even in this grim economy. This fact alone makes this industry a very comfortable place to be in.