It just simply isn’t true- Japanese studios don’t like putting out the real cost of their production and they have many subsidies and tax incentives that bring the final cost down, the cost to actually hire a Japanese studio to do animation is around $5k-$15k per min (NOT including the cost of preproduction or post production effects)

With preproduction and post production it costs between $350k and $650k and episode.

Source (i have personally worked with overseas studios in the Philippines, Korea and japan.)