Death Billiards
デス・ビリヤード
Two men have just arrived at a location known as Quindecim and are unable to remember how they got there. They are immediately greeted by a young woman who escorts them to a small bar, where a bartender awaits them. They are told that they will have to participate in a game, randomly chosen by roulette, and will be unable to leave until its completion; if they refuse, the consequences will be dire. In addition to the rules of the game, the two men are told to play as if their lives are at stake. The game that has been chosen is billiards. But there's more to it than just pocketing pool balls, as the two are about to find out the outcome could mean life or death. Death Billiards is one of the four anime works that each received 38 million yen (about US$480,000) from the "2012 Young Animator Training Project." Just like in 2010 and 2011, the animation labor group received 214.5 million yen (US$2.65 million) from the Japanese government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, and it distributed most of those funds to studios who train young animators on-the-job.
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Episodes
1
How watching this pays the artists
Every time you watch Death Billiards on a legitimate streaming service, a portion of that revenue flows back to MADHOUSE, the voice actors, the composer, and the animators who made it. Subscribing or watching on an ad-supported tier is how the work continues.
Where the money actually goes
Streaming services pay licensing fees to the production committee that financed the show. That committee distributes revenue to the studio, the publisher of the source material, the music label, and the broadcasters who originally aired it. The animators themselves are typically employed or contracted by the studio; their pay comes from the studio’s share of these licensing dollars.
Piracy doesn’t reduce streaming-service revenue evenly — it removes the underlying viewership that justifies future licensing investment. Less licensing investment means smaller studio budgets, lower pay for animators, and fewer shows greenlit.
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Death Billiards across the torinagi family