New Pokémon TV Anime Suspends Production in Japan in Coronavirus Crisis
Re-runs of previous episodes will be broadcast starting next week
It was announced on April 19 that after this week's episode of the new Pokémon anime – which started airing in Japan on November 17, 2019 – the TV anime series will be going on hiatus, with production on the TV anime series suspended. The news first broke when TV Tokyo released its upcoming schedule for next week, showing Pokémon being re-run, and then confirmed by the official Pokémon anime Twitter account.
＜番組からのお知らせ＞
— アニメ「ポケットモンスター」公式 (@anipoke_PR) April 19, 2020
新型コロナウイルスの感染拡大にともなう「緊急事態宣言」の発出を受け、
安全に十分配慮した上での番組制作を行うため、
一時的に、一部の制作作業を見合わせることにいたしました。
これに伴い、来週以降の「ポケットモンスター」は再放送となります。
A string of anime delays have hit this week, including Food Wars! The Fifth Plate, A Certain Scientific Railgun T, the final Rebuild of Evangelion anime film, and many more. This comes after the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, alongside the special new coronavirus taskforce, expanded the State of Emergency in Japan to cover the entire country.
The Twitter account confirmed the hiatus was due to "the State of Emergency declaration to combat the spread of the coronavirus." It was decided to "suspend production" "for the health and safety of staff."
It was not announced when the new Pokémon TV anime will return to Japanese TV screens.
Source: Anipoke on Twitter
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Daryl Harding is a Japan Correspondent for Crunchyroll News. He also runs the YouTube channel about Japan stuff called TheDoctorDazza, tweets at @DoctorDazza and posts photos of his travels on Instagram.
