COVID-19 has impacted many industries when people were advised to enter into quarantine, including the anime industry where certain titles had to be postponed. Many creators sincerely apologized and promised to resume their work once things got situated throughout the pandemic.

One example of this delay is my favorite anime at the moment, The Millionaire Detective Balance: Unlimited. The newly released anime series follows police officers Haru Katou and Daisuke Kambe who solve crimes together. I remember falling in love with it when I watched the first two episodes back in April. However, it wasn’t long until it was announced that the mystery genre anime would be postponed for three months where it will return back in July due to the ongoing pandemic.

Another one of my personal favorites is Demon Slayer, in which a young boy Tanjiro Kamado trains to become a demon slayer in order to turn his sister, who turned into a demon, back into a human. When the world was filled with hatred and contempt, Tanjiro still kept a positive attitude and even showed sympathy towards the demons that he slew.

“[The plot of Demon Slayer] may not seem much, but the anime portrays something much deeper. Essentially, this is saying that even if the world is against you, you must not fall,” senior Eric Sun said. “I guarantee this anime will alter your perspective of the world that revolves around you.”

The creators of Demon Slayer scheduled the release of Season 2 in October 2020 but now expect its release between January 2021 to April 2021 due to COVID-19.

Anime series weren’t the only ones that were being postponed. The pandemic caused the delay of the release of anime movies such as Violet Evergarden: The Movie and the Given Movie. Violet Evergarden is about a woman named Violet Evergarden who fought in a war and is now trying to learn the meaning of the words “I love you.”

“[I recommend Violet Evergarden] purely because of the animation,” senior Neil Subedi said.

The movie sequel was supposed to be released on April 24, 2020, but there is currently no new release date given the circumstances of the pandemic.

Another postponed movie sequel was the Given Movie, which is a sequel to the anime series Given. Given is a Boys Love (BL) series that revolves around four boys in a band and focuses on dual romantic relationships between Ritsuka Uenoyama and Mafuyu Satou, and Haruki Nakayama and Akihiko Kaji.

The film was set to be released in Japan on May 16, 2020, but its release has since moved to August 22, 2020. 

Many other anime series and movies have been held back due to COVID-19, but they are returning to production. My suggestion is to check out all the anime that you could possibly be binging right now.