My Hero Academia and Gundam animator explains the issues behind anime shows getting shorter: "There is a shortage of professional staff in all sections"

You may have noticed many anime shows are favoring shorter seasons of late. Solo Leveling has been released in 12 and 13 episode chunks, and Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX (generally pronounced 'G-Quacks' or 'G-Quirks') is only 12 episodes so far. An animator on Gundam and My Hero Academia has shed some light on why, and it’s a pretty simple reason.

On X/Twitter, Kyôko Kotani, a filmmaker credited on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, some of the My Hero Academia movies, and plenty more, posted about how the industry has shifted. According to her, it’s all part of a push for greater quality, requiring artists to spend more time on smaller amounts of released work.

"It's difficult to produce and air two consecutive seasons of a TV series because production requires a high level of quality on par with that of feature films," she says, as translated by Automaton Media, "while there is a shortage of professional staff in all sections compared to the total number of anime being produced. Even if you secure staff for a year, you can only make one season."

In her responses, she clarifies it's about finding adequate workers in specific skillsets, such as layouts and key animations. These are integral to getting any given project moving, and if the team is working from assets that aren’t up to scratch, it can be costly to the schedule.

"This often is not at a level that can be used for airing, so the animation director and director redo all of the drawings and exposure sheets. It is very time-consuming," she states.

The comparison to movies is something increasingly evident. The likes of Jujutsu Kaisen, Demon Slayer, and Attack on Titan set a particular standard in the minds of the audience for what to expect from anime on the small screen. There’s a desire now for everything to feel as glossy, sharp, and well-produced as those and their films, no matter how tough it is.

Time was, you could clearly see the difference between movies and TV, like in Dragon Ball Z and One Piece, since the television and film teams were operating on different pipelines to different standards. That's not so much the case now, and it's putting more strain on already stretched teams.

Something of DanDaDan’s quality takes a lot of resources to get right, same with One-Punch Man and the upcoming One Piece remake. The best we can do is be patient. Have a look through our list of the best anime on Netflix for productions worth celebrating.