[Monsoon]

Quote:

Originally Posted by vin13ish

Do the actors or actress get pay? If so who pay them with money?

Despite being a dream for young actors to play rangers or riders, It's a job and they need money

Couple things. First, they get paid. Those actors are professionals, and Toei isn't some tiny business that pays professionals just by letting them fulfill a dream. A schedule of shooting about 50 episodes plus a few films PLUS live events PLUS promotional work definitely means that the principal actors are getting paid.

But the "who pays them" question is a little trickier in Japan. In the United States, actors seeking work in the U.S. are (usually) represented by a talent agency that helps them find work, and also have membership within at least one actors' union: the biggest one is SAG-AFTRA, but there are others like AEG for different types of acting work. Generally, an actor works with an agent to find auditions, negotiates a contract (paying part of it to their agent) with producers or casting directors after accepting a part, and pays membership dues to their union; the union guarantees that actors are treated fairly and paid fairly. In general, actors are independent contractors that find more work / better work thanks to their agent and union. The more successful and popular an actor/actress is, the more clout he/she wields during negotiations.

In Japan things work a little differently, because the balance of power is shifted. In the U.S., the actor has *some* negotiating power. In Japan, talent agencies employ their actors more like a stable of talent and less like independent contractors. Because Japan's corporate culture usually has people sticking with one company for their entire lives, talent agencies will have their actors, musicians, and models stay with one agency forever, and the talent agency negotiates any and all work they're performing. Japan does have trade unions, but less than 20% of Japanese workers are union members, and they barely crack the entertainment industry at all. But even if they're working on a Toei production, the actors and actresses in Toku shows are probably only getting money from their talent agencies.

A few months ago, a Japanese boy band called SMAP caused a scandal when there was a rumor that one member of SMAP was leaving the talent agency. I say "boy band" sorta ironically because SMAP has been around almost 30 years. They're still with the same agency, making music every 2 or 3 years, because in Japan talent agencies hold way more power than the talent that they hire and SMAP will probably keep making music as SMAP until the agency decides to retire the name (even if all of its original members are dead). It's weird. The Japanese television, film, and music industries have this dark side to them that is rarely talked about in the Japanese media.

TL;DR of course they are fucking paid, but it's probably by their talent agency and not by Toei.