MAPPA’s staff speaks up about the Jujutsu Kaisen production issues.
Animators requested a production delay, but were denied it.
MAPPA takes up too many projects for its team to finish properly.
Jujutsu Kaisen production issues and the series quality have been discussed almost every week since the moment Season 2 began airing. It wasn’t anything extremely crucial at first: just some complaints about ghosting and shadowing in the anime. But the situation kept getting worse with each episode, and the viewers started noticing the overall animation quality decline, some frames looked raw and unfinished, and some — outright hilarious.
Although Season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen has had its bright moments, too, and a couple of previews and frames got fans super excited just a week ago, things have taken a new enormous turn in the past 24 hours.
Enough is enough
MAPPA’s animators have had enough. The endless waves of hatred and blame they’ve been facing on various social media are discouraging and troubling, and the mistreatment they’re getting from the animation studio itself has affected their work terribly. They started speaking up some time ago, and we’ve already mentioned one of the animators breaking down on Twitter, blaming themselves for everything and apologizing to the fans.
It’s been rumored before that MAPPA has some sort of an official agreement, preventing the studio workers from complaining publicly. Nevertheless, the situation is getting out of hand, and the staff cannot be silenced anymore. Jujutsu Kaisen animators have been undergoing a collective meltdown on Twitter for hours. They’re addressing the horrible working conditions and talking about a possible production delay or even crash.
Arai Kazuto, the episode director and storyboard of Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 13 (Season 2) tweeted a couple of self-explanatory messages such as “Bad news has arrived. The most boring ending imaginable” and “I was really disappointed. This is not fun anymore.”
Ookubo Shunsuke, the episode director (Ep. 12) of JJK has also spoken up. Ookubo tweeted an image that was taken from Shirobako, a series about making anime. The image shows one of the main protagonists of the show, ready to hang herself. This character is an animator in the anime, so such a tweet leaves no room for doubt, the comparison is obvious: the JJK animators are exhausted.
More people commented on the situation on social media as well, but took their tweets down later on. A post included the word “scum” referring to the JJK Season 2 production, and the animation director Roccia Nobili was pretty pessimistic with the now deleted “It’s over” tweet.
MAPPA needs a delay
Rumor has it that the staff working on the second season of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime requested a delay due to the outrageous deadlines and public outrage. The episodes of the series are being finished hours before their official release. The production committee denied the request. A production committee usually consists of a group of companies that finance and produce an anime and any related products. They control the production, and the animation studio alone cannot make any significant decisions without the rest of the companies agreeing.
That’s why a delay is not possible unless the majority of the production committee votes for it. On top of that, delays cost money. The companies will have to rebook airing slots for the series, rethink their marketing strategies, remake promos, and adjust release dates.
Episode 17 is the last one looking good for now, as it has a stacked list of animators. Everything that comes after that, they say, is not so positive. The studio and its animators are in dire need of an extended deadline, or Jujutsu Kaisen is going to be in danger of suffering a significant drop in quality.
Why has it all come to this?
The main issue with MAPPA is that they’ve taken up so many projects at the same time, that it’s physically impossible for its staff to provide a quality product on such a short notice. The studio is responsible for adapting such anime giants as Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, Vinland Saga, Hell’s Paradise (Jigokuraku) and Chainsaw Man. All these projects were or are being released for the last couple of years. And all of them go hand in hand with extremely high expectations.
Fans blame Manabu Otsuka, the CEO of MAPPA, for such an outcome. He wants the studio to become as big and popular as possible in a very short amount of time, that’s why MAPPA, a fairly young studio, is always the first one to agree to taking up huge projects.
Production committees commission studios, and the studios are given a certain deadline to create an anime. For example, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 was scheduled to air in 2023. The JJK movie was released in 2021, which had to give the staff two years to work on the second season of the adaptation. However, Chainsaw Man came out in 2022, and interfered with the process.
All the production rights for the Chainsaw Man adaptation went to MAPPA alone, since the studio didn’t want to share the success and the income following this project. All profits from the anime goes straight to MAPPA.
The Chainsaw Man adaptation shares a lot of animators with Jujutsu Kaisen, which means that they had to postpone their work on JJK in order to release CSM on time. And since Chainsaw Man is more profitable for the studio, it’s obvious that the series had to be the priority. So instead of working on the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen, the animators were forced to switch their attention to another anime, and we’re now experiencing the consequences of this choice.
This is getting out of hand.
Summary:
MAPPA’s staff speaks up about the Jujutsu Kaisen production issues.
Animators requested a production delay, but were denied it.
MAPPA takes up too many projects for its team to finish properly.
Jujutsu Kaisen production issues and the series quality have been discussed almost every week since the moment Season 2 began airing. It wasn’t anything extremely crucial at first: just some complaints about ghosting and shadowing in the anime. But the situation kept getting worse with each episode, and the viewers started noticing the overall animation quality decline, some frames looked raw and unfinished, and some — outright hilarious.
Although Season 2 of Jujutsu Kaisen has had its bright moments, too, and a couple of previews and frames got fans super excited just a week ago, things have taken a new enormous turn in the past 24 hours.
Enough is enough
MAPPA’s animators have had enough. The endless waves of hatred and blame they’ve been facing on various social media are discouraging and troubling, and the mistreatment they’re getting from the animation studio itself has affected their work terribly. They started speaking up some time ago, and we’ve already mentioned one of the animators breaking down on Twitter, blaming themselves for everything and apologizing to the fans.
It’s been rumored before that MAPPA has some sort of an official agreement, preventing the studio workers from complaining publicly. Nevertheless, the situation is getting out of hand, and the staff cannot be silenced anymore. Jujutsu Kaisen animators have been undergoing a collective meltdown on Twitter for hours. They’re addressing the horrible working conditions and talking about a possible production delay or even crash.
Arai Kazuto, the episode director and storyboard of Jujutsu Kaisen Episode 13 (Season 2) tweeted a couple of self-explanatory messages such as “Bad news has arrived. The most boring ending imaginable” and “I was really disappointed. This is not fun anymore.”
Ookubo Shunsuke, the episode director (Ep. 12) of JJK has also spoken up. Ookubo tweeted an image that was taken from Shirobako, a series about making anime. The image shows one of the main protagonists of the show, ready to hang herself. This character is an animator in the anime, so such a tweet leaves no room for doubt, the comparison is obvious: the JJK animators are exhausted.
More people commented on the situation on social media as well, but took their tweets down later on. A post included the word “scum” referring to the JJK Season 2 production, and the animation director Roccia Nobili was pretty pessimistic with the now deleted “It’s over” tweet.
MAPPA needs a delay
Rumor has it that the staff working on the second season of the Jujutsu Kaisen anime requested a delay due to the outrageous deadlines and public outrage. The episodes of the series are being finished hours before their official release. The production committee denied the request. A production committee usually consists of a group of companies that finance and produce an anime and any related products. They control the production, and the animation studio alone cannot make any significant decisions without the rest of the companies agreeing.
That’s why a delay is not possible unless the majority of the production committee votes for it. On top of that, delays cost money. The companies will have to rebook airing slots for the series, rethink their marketing strategies, remake promos, and adjust release dates.
Episode 17 is the last one looking good for now, as it has a stacked list of animators. Everything that comes after that, they say, is not so positive. The studio and its animators are in dire need of an extended deadline, or Jujutsu Kaisen is going to be in danger of suffering a significant drop in quality.
Why has it all come to this?
The main issue with MAPPA is that they’ve taken up so many projects at the same time, that it’s physically impossible for its staff to provide a quality product on such a short notice. The studio is responsible for adapting such anime giants as Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen, Vinland Saga, Hell’s Paradise (Jigokuraku) and Chainsaw Man. All these projects were or are being released for the last couple of years. And all of them go hand in hand with extremely high expectations.
Fans blame Manabu Otsuka, the CEO of MAPPA, for such an outcome. He wants the studio to become as big and popular as possible in a very short amount of time, that’s why MAPPA, a fairly young studio, is always the first one to agree to taking up huge projects.
Production committees commission studios, and the studios are given a certain deadline to create an anime. For example, Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 was scheduled to air in 2023. The JJK movie was released in 2021, which had to give the staff two years to work on the second season of the adaptation. However, Chainsaw Man came out in 2022, and interfered with the process.
All the production rights for the Chainsaw Man adaptation went to MAPPA alone, since the studio didn’t want to share the success and the income following this project. All profits from the anime goes straight to MAPPA.
The Chainsaw Man adaptation shares a lot of animators with Jujutsu Kaisen, which means that they had to postpone their work on JJK in order to release CSM on time. And since Chainsaw Man is more profitable for the studio, it’s obvious that the series had to be the priority. So instead of working on the second season of Jujutsu Kaisen, the animators were forced to switch their attention to another anime, and we’re now experiencing the consequences of this choice.
