As the coronavirus makes its way across the world, more industries are finding themselves impacted by the disease’s spread. From travel to tourism, plenty of people are feeling the sting of the coronavirus who aren’t even infected by the illness, and the anime industry is not immune.
The most popular isekai anime Re: Zero – Starting Life In Another World’s highly anticipated second season was slated for an April release, but a new report states that the show has been delayed.
In a tweet posted by A.I.R, Re: Zero’s second season will now be broadcasted in July because of the impact of the coronavirus outbreak. Crunchyroll reported that the virus has negatively affected anime production in China and Japan. Later this month Anime Japan 2020 canceled Tokyo’s Anime Japan convention because of the Coronavirus Outbreak in japan.
The second season of "Re:Zero -Starting Life in Another World-" has been postponed due to the impact of the Coronavirus outbreak. Broadcasting is now planned for July.https://t.co/mmjbUePjET pic.twitter.com/mAzkw988MS
— A.I.R (Anime Intelligence (and) Research) (@AIR_News01) March 9, 2020
The Japanese government has asked those event organizers in all fields to cancel or postpone non-essential large-scale events scheduled between now and late March. Japan is currently one of the most infected countries by coronavirus with Tokyo is a hotbed for transmission.
While not ranked as bad as South Korea or even Italy, Japan is doing its best to keep infection rates down, and the nation has implemented mandates to keep them low.
The Japanese government has asked many to work from home if possible while canceling school for the entirety of March. With animators doing work outside the office if at all, it should come as no surprise that Re: Zero has been postponed.
By the summer, fans are hoping the anime industry will be firing on all cylinders as the coronavirus lessens in the hotter weather. So if there was a month to delay the season towards then July is it.
The first reported cases of the COVD-19 disease occurred in Wuhan, China in December, and then began to spread in varying rates and intensities across many parts of the globe through incubation in human hosts. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a world health emergency on January 30. As of today, the WHO reported that there are 113,000 people infected worldwide and killed over 4,000 with 78,191 of them in China and 164 official cases in Japan proper.
