Matt Schley
April 15, 2020 
COVID-19 is taking its toll across virtually every industry, including anime. Several big-name films like Violet Evergarden and Detective Conan have been delayed, as has the latest season of Sword Art Online and others.
Now one animator has a bleak prediction for the upcoming summer season.
Eiichi Kuboyama, a key animator and episode director that’s worked on series like Didn’t I Say to Make My Abilities Average in the Next Life?! and The Quintessential Quintuplets, tweeted April 12 sharing his doubts about next cours, which starts in July.
Said Kuboyama:
There’s an impression out there that anime production is stopped because of voice actors, but that’s not right. To be honest, if production studios close, it won’t be a major issue, but if compositing studios do, a number of productions will stall. Also, some shows have been delayed from April to July, but at this rate, I think July is impossible. That’s how it feels.
Compositing, or photography, is the step of the process where the backgrounds, keyframes and in-between frames, effects and so on are all slapped together. Apparently, many production studios don’t have the ability to composite in-house, making that step of the process a serious bottleneck.
I have a feeling the next few months are going to see anime fans dipping into their backlogs as newer series get delayed or canceled.
何か声優のせいでアニメがストップしている印象だけど、違うからね。
正直、作画スタジオが閉鎖になっても大した影響は無いけど、撮影会社が閉鎖したら数作品落ちるよね。
あと、勝手に4月から7月に延期しているけど、今のままだと7月も無理だと思うよ。
そんな感じ。
— クボヤマ エイイチ (@kuboyamama) April 12, 2020
Source: ANN
