Is 'Tokyo Ghoul' Season 3 Having Production Issues?

It goes without saying but making an anime is hard. Just the task of getting a series okayed by a studio is difficult, and then you have to factor in all the time it takes to animate the show's episode order. These days, even the most casual fan knows the anime industry is working at max capacity, and that stress does show at times.

Don't believe it? Just take a gander at what is going on behind-the-scenes with Tokyo Ghoul and its new season. You'll start to see the pattern then.

Last month, anime fans were greeted by a long-awaited comeback in the from of Tokyo Ghoul. The anime followed its controversial second season with a new one based on the Tokyo Ghoul:re manga. Nowadays, the season is more than halfway finished, and fans aren't afraid to call out its shoddy production schedule.

Over on Twitter, one fan went so far as to lay out the third season's schedule for episodes 7-10. If all the staffing for those episodes are correct, then each of those received a storyboard by a single artist, Toshinori Watanabe. Not only is that artist overseeing those updates in full, but he will direct two of them with animators at Studio Pierrot. As for the other two episodes, they are being outsourced to animation studio in South Korea.

The eye-raising update has fans looking at Tokyo Ghoul:re more closely, and others are wondering what is causing the production cramp. Studio Pierrot is notorious within the anime fandom for its questionable schedules, and this new season is just one of a few titles being worked on. The studio is overseeing two high-priority titles in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations and Black Clover, both of which are annual series. When you add that on top of the industry's inability to pay animators basic wages, you can see why more series like Tokyo Ghoul are having to be outsourced.

For those unfamiliar with Tokyo Ghoul, the series was original created by Sui Ishida. The story follows Ken Kaneki, a student who survives an encounter with his date, who turns out to be a ghoul. Kaneki's world is filled with Ghouls, beings who eat humans, and they've been living among humans in secret. After surviving this attack he wakes up to realize that he himself has become a ghoul because of a surgery that implanted organs from the ghoul who attacked him. In order to live somewhat a normal life, Kaneki needs to eat human flesh to survive. Luckily he's taken in by a group of ghouls at the cafe Anteiku, who help him reintegrate into society.

Have you noticed any of these issues with Tokyo Ghoul's third season? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics, k-pop, and anime!