Covid-19 - Original image Credit: Media from Wix
COVID-19 has an impact on almost every industry in some way or another. The entertainment industry has had more of a mix response. As more people are isolating themselves indoors they have more opportunities to watch those Netflix shows that have been on their list for a while. Let’s not forget about how Disney plus Came out at a similar time during the lockdown in the U.K.
However, with production of many franchises and projects being halted. The production of anime was no exception.
A few ongoing series such as “Pokemon”, “One Piece” and Digimon” had to have their next few episodes delayed until the foreseeable future due to the lockdown. This has also impacted theatrical releases of other popular anime such as the "Doraemon" and "Detective Conan" franchises.
These delays are due to domestic production slowing because of the new implemented rules of being required to work at home. This has a larger impact on anime due to the way they typically do their voice acting. In the west voice acting is usually done with one actor in a booth. However, in Japan all the voice actors of whichever scene they are recording will all come together in the same room. With this being one of the main ways Japanese dubs are done it is no surprise that there were some delays in the production of anime.
There were also some delays to english dubbing of anime as COVID-19 had made english voice actors to now record from home. The english dubbing of anime only saw a few minor delays as the voice actors were able to resume recordings from their own home studios.
I reached out to MangaUK, a distributer of anime to inquire about how the virus has impacted their sales and if it has altered any of their plans for the rest of the year. However, they were unable to reveal any of this information.
Crunchyroll a distributer, publisher and licensing company for streaming anime has acknowledged that there will be delays to a number of anime series and films and have therefore compiled a list of what has been delayed. You can check out this list for yourself here. This list is regularly updated with dates to when shows and movies will be released. It also provides a list of the big anime conventions that have been affected by COVID-19 and what the status of each convention and if they will be at least streamed online.
So far it looks like that production of anime has resumed. With this year expecting big show’s like the final season of Attack on Titan and the very popular demon slayer with its cinematic film due in November - fans can have a sigh of relief knowing that with only a minor setback, the anime set to be released this year is likely to go uninterrupted as productions have adapted to the new required status quo.