Summer 2020¡¯s anime season is a rare beast in that the average person could conceivably sample every new show. Such a feat usually requires superhuman levels of free time ¡ª 2019¡¯s summer season featured, by one count, 33 new TV shows, while 2020, by comparison, boasts a ¡°mere¡± 17.
It¡¯d be nice to say this consolidation was due to some industry-wide ¡°quality over quantity¡± epiphany, but the real cause of this year¡¯s compact summer season is ¡ª you guessed it ¡ª COVID-19.
You¡¯d think that animation production would be unaffected by the pandemic ¡ª unlike live-action shows, there are no sets populated with cast and crew members in close quarters. But Japan¡¯s animation industry has faced its own challenges during the pandemic. Pure pencil-to-paper animation remains the same as it ever was, but other pieces of the puzzle are moving more slowly than usual: Shipments from subcontractors in China and South Korea, for example, nearly ground to a halt in April; voice-recording sessions are now done one actor at a time rather than in groups. And because the industry is so interconnected, with studios regularly contracting parts of their shows out to each other, a single problem can create an industry-wide bottleneck.
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