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What are the chances that the Coronavirus causes episodes to be delayed or canceled?

I was also wondering this in the preview for SS020; where I asked if any of the anime production from OLM come from China, since they had 7 animation directors for that episode alone. Maybe they need more animation directors for that episode because some of the anime production has already been disrupted, so they are brought onboard to help with the in-between frames or something.

I doubt it. I think all the animation is already done until June at least.
 
I was also wondering this in the preview for SS020; where I asked if any of the anime production from OLM come from China, since they had 7 animation directors for that episode alone. Maybe they need more animation directors for that episode because some of the anime production has already been disrupted, so they are brought onboard to help with the in-between frames or something.

I don't think that episode's animation director listing is meant to imply that the episode in question struggled during development because of this virus. I do wonder how many episodes they've completed by this point though.

I do not know if the Coronavirus will affect the dubbing of the anime for the upcoming pokemon 2019 season which has yet to start airing

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As far as weekly TV animated series goes Pocket Monsters has one of the best schedules in the business. Not "we have all the animation up to June finished" levels (that'd be insane), but they do have a few weeks' worth of episodes probably already in the can just ready to air. If the coronavirus causes any delays then we probably won't see them for a few more weeks.

Worst case scenario I can see them throwing together a clip show like the two they did during Advanced Generation and Diamond & Pearl.

Silktree said:
I would think the animation could be done remotely. The script writing and voice recording are done in isolation to begin with.

There's no reason most of the staff shouldn't be able to do their work from home, in theory, especially with how much of the show is done digitally at this point. But in practive things are a bit more tricky. Japanese companies are notoriously slow for changing the way they do things (you'd be surprised how many offices here still use fax machines in the year 2020) and so OLM may not even be providing a work-from-home option yet. They may also be hesitant to allow their workers to take home some of the more expensive equipment, or may not have enough for every person to take home. Some animators live in crappy apartments due to the slave wages they work for and may not even have space for a table to do any work on. And so on.

As for the voice acting, they seem to have multiple chairs in the recording booth based on various interviews / tweets from Masafumi Mima. We know from a pre-release interview that Rica Matsumoto sits beside Daiki Yamashita in the booth, for example. They may switch to doing one-at-a-time recordings for the foreseeable future, though.

Nicolas721 said:
As far as I know, the whole production of the anime is done in Japan

It's not. The show is outsourced all over Asia based on the logistics of getting the show out on time every week.
 
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Just to be safe, let's just cancel the entire series and pretend pokemon 2019 never existed.
you're funny...


I believe they start working on episodes about 8 Months before it airs according to that Old BW Leak. It may be even faster now, so who knows? I do think they rap up things like the Voice Acting 2 Months before the Episode airs.
 
I believe they start working on episodes about 8 Months before it airs according to that Old BW Leak. It may be even faster now, so who knows? I do think they rap up things like the Voice Acting 2 Months before the Episode airs.

Someone told me it was 6 months unless BW episodes took longer to produce. And I think the fact that we haven't heard any news about any possible delay is a good sign that the series will run like normal.
 
I ask because a lot of things are getting delayed or canceled, like sporting events and now E3. I'm worried the same might happen to the anime to keep everyone working on it safe.
I think it’ll take a while before a delay since episodes are created before a deadline.
 
Someone told me it was 6 months unless BW episodes took longer to produce. And I think the fact that we haven't heard any news about any possible delay is a good sign that the series will run like normal.
I'm not quite sure and trying to find the art but I remember seeing a leaked anime sheet of the Nacrene Gym Episode that aired in February 2011 but had a June 2010 Production Date on it.
 
Yeah, that's part of the reason the episode was aired in Japan with Aloe's original design; it was already being animated before the official reveal (and subsequent backlash to) of the older Sugimori art.
 
I hope this won't result in them changing the animation to 3D since it's easier and cheaper to make (I think?). Especially since they have already flirted with the idea in the Mewtwo remake movie.

I remember reading that the animators are badly paid so I guess losing their income could be a huge problem for the individual.
 
I hate to sound like a harbinger of doom, but now that they have been forced to postpone the Olympics, is anyone else starting to see that some form of lockdown and therefore temporary hiatus is likely inevitable? Japan won't bury its head in the sand forever and it sounds like they are (finally) talking about emergency measures given the rise in cases in Tokyo in the last few days. Writing/animation may be able to take place from home although doubtful at the same pace, but if they restrict people leaving their homes, they're not going to be able to record even the seiyuus alone in the booth.

As for the dub... I can't remember if they record in NY or LA, but both are fully locked down now right? Original delays aside, this is going to put the dub's release back substantially.
 
I hate to sound like a harbinger of doom, but now that they have been forced to postpone the Olympics, is anyone else starting to see that some form of lockdown and therefore temporary hiatus is likely inevitable? Japan won't bury its head in the sand forever and it sounds like they are (finally) talking about emergency measures given the rise in cases in Tokyo in the last few days. Writing/animation may be able to take place from home although doubtful at the same pace, but if they restrict people leaving their homes, they're not going to be able to record even the seiyuus alone in the booth.

As for the dub... I can't remember if they record in NY or LA, but both are fully locked down now right? Original delays aside, this is going to put the dub's release back substantially.

The dub records in New York. I'm not sure if New York is on full locked down yet, but if Funimation is putting their simulcast dubs on hold, then I imagine that TPCI is taking a break from the dub too. It's really not a good idea to have a bunch of people going in and out of recording booths. I'm not sure if recording can be done at the voice actors homes. They probably have done at least a few episodes of the new series by now, especially when there was a tweet claiming that they began production back in November, so they might still be able to premiere at least a few episodes.

Earlier this month, I didn't think that the virus situation would become this bad, so I initially didn't think much of the question. Now having some impact on the production of this and other anime series does sound pretty likely. Some of the production could be done at their homes, but recording might be tricky, especially when it is more common for Japanese voice actors to record together as opposed to being recorded separately.
 
I hate to sound like a harbinger of doom, but now that they have been forced to postpone the Olympics, is anyone else starting to see that some form of lockdown and therefore temporary hiatus is likely inevitable? Japan won't bury its head in the sand forever and it sounds like they are (finally) talking about emergency measures given the rise in cases in Tokyo in the last few days. Writing/animation may be able to take place from home although doubtful at the same pace, but if they restrict people leaving their homes, they're not going to be able to record even the seiyuus alone in the booth.

Legally, the Japanese government cannot impose the same kind of lockdowns you see in countries like China or the U.S. This article from The Japan Times spells it out rather nicely.

The Japan Times said:
Can the government order city lockdowns to deal with the coronavirus outbreak?

According to Hyogo-based lawyer Koju Nagai, who is well versed in disaster prevention laws, the short answer is no.

The closest Japan has at the moment, he said, is a law enacted in 2012 to battle a novel influenza virus that became a pandemic in 2009. The law spells out a raft of measures that can be taken by governors to restrict the movement of people.

But even so, municipal leaders can merely request that residents under their jurisdiction stay indoors as much as possible and that schools and other public facilities temporarily shut or scale back their businesses. Should the requests be disobeyed, governors can take it up a notch and issue something that amounts to an order, although failure to comply entails no penalties, Nagai said.

There is also the question of whether the anti-influenza law, which applies only to completely new infectious diseases, can be used for the COVID-19 outbreak. Health minister Katsunobu Kato has reportedly told the Diet that the current crisis does not constitute a new disease as envisioned by the law because coronaviruses have been a known entity for years.

The article goes into more details about what the Japanese government can and cannot do, but the short version that they don't really have any power to restrict people's movements. Japanese politicians can ask residents not to go out, sure, but that's really about it. People still went out to restaurants and bars this weekend even though the city was supposed to be on lockdown, and drinking in the parks for cherry blossom viewing was still very much a thing. Some shops closed up or shortened their hours as a sign of solidarity with the mayor but all that was strictly voluntary.

At the moment I don't see anything from either OLM or Techno Sound (the studio they record at) indicating that they're closing or adjusting their hours any so I think it's safe to say that for now, at least, production is moving ahead as usual.


(also, the conspiracy theory about that "rise in cases in Tokyo in the last few days" is that as soon as Japan announced that the Olympics were being canceled they no longer have any incentive to hide the numbers and can actually start taking actions it honestly should have taken weeks ago, though that's a topic for another thread...)
 
Rica Matsumoto herself said on Twitter that a recording session for the anime got stretched over 2 weeks, for the first time in the show's history:


View: https://twitter.com/rica_matsumoto3/status/1244915558631403520

No direct confirmation of any potential hiatus yet, but the Corona crisis is undoubtedly and unsurprisingly having its effects on the show as well.
 
Please note: The thread is from 3 years ago.
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