History TroubledProduction / AnimeAndManga

* ''Literature/LostUniverse'' is a notorious case. The show's budget was already low, but a studio fire resulted in lots of work from the first few episodes destroyed. They had to be reanimated on an even lower budget by a South Korean studio while the rest of the show resumed production. This all occurring during a recession. One episode looked so bad on TV, that it had to be almost entirely re-animated again for home video and re-runs. A second season was also canceled so King Records could make way for more ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'' movies.

** ''Anime/YuGiOh5Ds'' is the most famous case of this, and had this creep up in the post-Dark Signer seasons. The issues included extensive ExecutiveMeddling from Konami to promote certain cards, and staff being taken off to work on [[Anime/YuGiOhBondsBeyondTime the 10th anniversary movie]] resulting in a lot of filler until their return for the big plot episodes. Real-life issues ranged from the major female character's actress taking time off to get married thus her character getting DemotedToExtra, to another female character's voice actress being fired after, of all things, ''being linked to a cult''. The latter also forced the series to remove any and all supernatural elements.[[note]]Yu-Gi-Oh! had already been shifting to a more sci-fi atmosphere, but the controversy certainly accelerated it.[[/note]]

** ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'' had some of the same issues as ''5D's'' with a voice actor causing a major character to appear sporadically[[note]]Reiji Akaba's voice actor was busy in other projects, so his character had to be sidelined in one arc.[[/note]], and the [[Anime/YuGiOhTheDarkSideOfDimensions 20th anniversary movie]] taking animation talent away, throwing off schedules and derailing the planned story. It was later confirmed that head writer Tsumuto Kamishiro wasn't getting his scripts in on time near the tail end of the series, resulting in points where the animators weren't even sure what they were animating, and the much-loathed design of [[spoiler:Zarc-Yuya]] reportedly came about due to an inability to finish a proper design on time.

* ''Anime/LostUniverse'' is a notorious case. The show's budget was already low, but a studio fire resulted in lots of work from the first few episodes destroyed. They had to be reanimated on an even lower budget by a South Korean studio while the rest of the show resumed production. This all occurring during a recession. One episode looked so bad on TV, that it had to be almost entirely re-animated again for home video and re-runs. A second season was also canceled so King Records could make way for more ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'' movies.

* ''Literature/MaerchenMaedchen''. When the anime aired, a lot of people complained about the animation quality, so much so that after episode 8 aired, Hoods Entertainment announced that they would take a break from airing Episode 9 to improve the quality of the anime, which took them 2 weeks. The result? [[FromBadToWorse The quality took an amazing drop, ranging from stilted faces to awkward animations to even the voices not matching the characters, effectively being worse than when it aired.]] [[https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/976829455279771648 Thankfully, an explanation soon followed shortly after.]] Sadly as a result, the last two episodes, 11 and 12, were put on hiatus. They did not air until ''over a year later.''

** The director chosen for the ''Berserk'' project was Shin Itagaki, who was more well-known for directing lighter fare such as the RapidFireComedy WidgetSeries ''Manga/{{Teekyuu}}''. He had at least directed ''Anime/DevilMayCryTheAnimatedSeries'' (2007), so he wasn't a complete stranger to bloody, demon-slaying action. Nevertheless, he had never directed a 3D anime before, and his determination to replicate the unique and highly detailed aesthetic of the original manga held up the start of production, since his vision ran up against the limited capabilities of Studio GEMBA. Production began in the spring of 2015, when they created the first teaser, but it was not until the project was formally announced in December of that year that Itagaki and the staff actually reached a compromise about what the show would look like. Because he wasn't satisfied with the more realistic first version and wanted to get more of a stylized 2D look, they had to scrap all of the assets they had created for the trailer, and in January 2016, they started making 150 new character models from scratch. They started animating in March--just four months before the show was set to air--and things got worse. It turned out that their hardware couldn't handle rendering the highly detailed character models they had created, and since they didn't have time to work out a better solution, their only choice was to simplify the models. They also had to scrap their plans to use a system called Global Illumination to enhance the 3D backgrounds.

** After ''SEVENS'' finished, the effects of the ''UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic'' were still ongoing as production for the next series, ''Anime/YuGiOhGoRush'' began, which meant that it was difficult to hold casting for the series, and the director admitted they got lucky with casting the core cast. While this hasn't been confirmed, it's possible this is the reason many characters from ''GO RUSH!!'' are based on and share the same voice actors as characters from ''[=SEVENS=]''.

* ''LightNovel/MarchenMadchen''. When the anime aired, a lot of people complained about the animation quality, so much so that after episode 8 aired, Hoods Entertainment announced that they would take a break from airing Episode 9 to improve the quality of the anime, which took them 2 weeks. The result? [[FromBadToWorse The quality took an amazing drop, ranging from stilted faces to awkward animations to even the voices not matching the characters, effectively being worse than when it aired.]] [[https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/976829455279771648 Thankfully, an explanation soon followed shortly after.]] Sadly as a result, the last two episodes, 11 and 12, were put on hiatus. They did not air until ''over a year later.''

* ''Anime/NadiaTheSecretOfBlueWater''. Aside from the unexpected decision to extend the show to 39 episodes (hence the Korean-animated filler arc -- so detached from the rest of the show that even director Creator/HideakiAnno declared it all non-canon except for Episodes 30 and 31), there were other problems plaguing the show's production progress. Anno reportedly disliked the original script for the show, and decided to rewrite it from scratch. Furthermore, any "suggestions" from NHK on how to "improve" the show were instantly disregarded, hence the DarkerAndEdgier tone for most of the canonical episodes. Because of Anno's demand for perfectionism, many episodes ran late, with Anno spending more than eighteen hours per day on the show! At one point, after episode 20 was broadcast, it took an entire month for audiences to see the subsequent one. The budget for the show also caused Gainax to lose more than ¥800 million (half a million dollars!) in finances. They were also denied any of the rights. Perhaps because of this, neither Gainax nor NHK worked together on another show. ''Nadia'' is also often pointed to as the cause of Anno's depression and breakdown, which would worsen during the production of ''Evangelion''.

* ''Literature/MarchenMadchen''. When the anime aired, a lot of people complained about the animation quality, so much so that after episode 8 aired, Hoods Entertainment announced that they would take a break from airing Episode 9 to improve the quality of the anime, which took them 2 weeks. The result? [[FromBadToWorse The quality took an amazing drop, ranging from stilted faces to awkward animations to even the voices not matching the characters, effectively being worse than when it aired.]] [[https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/976829455279771648 Thankfully, an explanation soon followed shortly after.]] Sadly as a result, the last two episodes, 11 and 12, were put on hiatus. They did not air until ''over a year later.''

* The third season of the ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDXD'' anime adaptation, ''[=BorN=]'', had several behind-the-scenes problems. Author Ichiei Ishibumi, director Tetsuya Yanagisawa and screenwriter Takao Yoshioka hit walls trying to work in adapting volumes 5 through 7 of the light novels. Yanagisawa came up with a different story that substantially revised the volumes' plot elements. Ishibumi and Yoshioka disagreed with Yanagisawa over the latter having the final say. After the season was finished, Yanagisawa and Ishibumi went their separate ways.

* ''Anime/LostUniverse'' is a notorious case. The show's budget was already low, but a studio fire resulted in lots of work from the first few episodes destroyed. They had to be reanimated on an even lower budget by a South Korean studio while the rest of the show resumed production. This all occurring during a recession. One episode looked so bad on TV, that it had to be almost entirely re-animated again for home video and re-runs. A second season was also canceled so King Records could make way for more ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'' movies.
* ''LightNovel/MarchenMadchen''. When the anime aired, a lot of people complained about the animation quality, so much so that after episode 8 aired, Hoods Entertainment announced that they would take a break from airing Episode 9 to improve the quality of the anime, which took them 2 weeks. The result? [[FromBadToWorse The quality took an amazing drop, ranging from stilted faces to awkward animations to even the voices not matching the characters, effectively being worse than when it aired.]] [[https://twitter.com/Yuyucow/status/976829455279771648 Thankfully, an explanation soon followed shortly after.]] Sadly as a result, the last two episodes, 11 and 12, were put on hiatus. They did not air until ''over a year later.''

* The UsefulNotes/COVIDPandemic caused no end of trouble to many anime productions, delaying releases across the board, though none were as gravely affected as the ''Anime/{{Pokemon}}'' anime in its ''Journeys'' saga due to its weekly episode format being closely tied to the games. This led to several months of hiatus during the first year, sudden weekly breaks, canon and filler episodes alike being filled with several animation directors (as opposed to just one per episode) in order to meet deadlines, an overall lack of spotlight for Ash's and Goh's teams, and perhaps many stories from in-game characters - especially Galarian characters - being dropped, causing ''Journeys'' to become the shortest saga among the rest. The most glaring example was the removal of yearly movies after ''Anime/PokemonSecretsOfTheJungle'', which haven't been announced for the past 3 years.

* The Winter 2022 anime, ''Anime/Tokyo24thWard'', has shown a lot of problem prior to the show's debut. Its Chief Animation Director, Kiminori Itō, [[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/interest/2021-12-28/tokyo-twenty-fourth-ward-chief-animation-director-is-pessimistic-about-the-animation-quality/.181025 revealed his pessimism on the project on Twitter]]. It was announced late and that CloverWorks are also working on two other Winter 2022 anime shows, ''Manga/MyDressUpDarling'' and ''Manga/AkebisSailorUniform''. And when comparing the quality of two shows with ''Tokyo 24th Ward'', it's obvious that the latter suffers the most. Then, its seventh episode gets delayed for one week and a recap episode was released for the delay of its tenth episode.

** Things got markedly worse when the animation team found themselves struggling with what they were expected to animate, with key animators Koji Watanabe (''Anime/TenchiMuyo'', ''Anime/{{Bleach}}'', ''Anime/DigimonAdventureTri'') and Tetsuro Aoki (''Anime/MyHeroAcademia'', ''Anime/SamuraiSeven'', ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam0080WarInThePocket'') giving an unusually frank interview in the making-of documentary complaining about Masamune's weird and impractical mech designs. Masamune himself was aware that his art style was not suited for animation and requested that ORCA modify his designs for the animators. If that interview is any indication, that didn't happen.

* The third season of the ''LightNovel/HighSchoolDxD'' anime adaptation, ''[=BorN=]'', had several behind-the-scenes problems. Author Ichiei Ishibumi, director Tetsuya Yanagisawa and screenwriter Takao Yoshioka hit walls trying to work in adapting volumes 5 through 7 of the light novels. Yanagisawa came up with a different story that substantially revised the volumes' plot elements. Ishibumi and Yoshioka disagreed with Yanagisawa over the latter having the final say. After the season was finished, Yanagisawa and Ishibumi went their separate ways.

* ''Anime/DarlingInTheFranxx'' suffered from production delays and series composition mismanagement, especially by the second half of the series. [[https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/convention/2018/anime-expo-news-roundup-day-zero-one-two-headlines/anime-expo-trigger-panel/.133997 In an appearance at Anime Expo 2018]], [[Creator/StudioTrigger TRIGGER's]] panel revealed that the show's pre-production was difficult and that the team had "been through a lot". There has also been substantial speculation that TRIGGER did not get along with [[Creator/A1Pictures Cloverworks]], and the former had to face having storyboards rejected by the producer and director. TRIGGER eventually pulled out of the series entirely after the release of Episode 14, leading many to speculate that the second half was negatively affected because of TRIGGER's departure. Judging from ''Franxx'' being completely absent [[https://www.st-trigger.co.jp/works/ on TRIGGER's website]], TRIGGER likely called NoTrueScotsman on the series as a result of the adverse relationship they had with Cloverworks. For the record, the series ''does'' appear on [[https://cloverworks.co.jp/works/page/3/ Cloverworks' site]].