The television anime Uncle From Another World’s animator Ippei Ichii provided a shocking image of the challenging working conditions (Isekai Ojisan). Three weeks before the episode was scheduled to air, Ichii claimed that he was going to direct the anime’s tenth episode but backed out of the project because “there was no animation team available.”

Ichii claimed to have assisted with the storyboarding and voice acting for episode 10 in his writings. A staff member was cautioned by him to “not treat a person I introduced to them carelessly and to please act responsibly through the last episode” in another instance, which he also brought up.

He started tweeting on August 27. He said the next show was set to air in three days, but no employees were available, the day after. The eighth and subsequent episodes of the anime have been postponed indefinitely, according to the official anime website, which made the announcement on August 31. This is because Atelier Pontdarc and other studios involved in the production of the anime have seen a sharp rise in COVID-19 infections. Instead, the anime will replay Episodes 3 through 6. When the anime returns, the website will let users know.

A similar outbreak of COVID-19 throughout the studio caused the anime’s fifth episode, which was supposed to debut on August 3 but instead aired on August 17, to be delayed by two weeks. Atelier Pontdarc is situated in Tokyo, where a total of 14,193 new COVID-19 infections were detected on September 1. After a spike in late July, the region is presently experiencing a decline in new infections. Tokyo’s infection rate is low when compared to other regions of the country based on prefecture population size and is down 38% from two weeks ago.

According to The New York Times, 156,819 new illnesses occur on average each day in Japan as a whole. Nationally, cases have reduced by 17% but mortality have gone up by 17%. Since the epidemic started, August saw the greatest average number of infections and fatalities in Japan.

The Love Live! Superstar!! episode 8 of the second season will now air on September 11 due to COVID-19, according to broadcaster NHK’s announcement this week.

On August 27, Ichii stated through Twitter that production is “moving forward with exclusively in-house workers.” Atelier Pontdarc, a relatively young animation company established in July 2020, is where the anime is created. The Ganbare Dki-chan net anime and OAV were animated by Atelier Pontdarc before they began production on Uncle From Another World.

On July 6, the anime had its global Netflix debut. Also on July 6, AT-X in Japan broadcast the anime’s premiere.

Ichii previously attracted notice when he asserted that animators were receiving bargain prices for the creation of a Netflix animation produced at MAPPA. MAPPA disputed that the studio had given “creators” (a word used in this context to refer to an anime’s creative personnel, including animators), who work on current and prior projects, unfair pay, saying that rates were appropriate in relation to the project’s budget. Additionally, it asserted that it has never made an artist work under duress.