The president of Studio Pierrot, Michiyuki Honma, has revealed that just one (very influential) anime is to thank for the changes in anime pacing.
Naruto is one of the most well-known anime franchises worldwide. Multiple games, movies and spinoffs are based on the source material. The first episode of the show aired in 2002 and since then the anime industry has changed drastically.
The president of Studio Pierrot, who worked on Naruto and are currently working on the continuation, Boruto, has revealed that one anime in particular is to thank for the shift in the studio's own strategy, as well as the anime industry as a whole.
Studio Pierrot President Believes Demon Slayer Had Huge Impact On Anime Industry
Recently, Michiyuki Honma spoke to Comic Natalie, where he revealed that one of the anime with the biggest impact on the industry was none other than Ufotable's Demon Slayer. The budget and pacing of the series has helped shape how anime is currently being made and has even influenced Pierrot.
Pierrot is known for their long-running series like Naruto, Boruto, and Black Clover, with weekly new episodes. It's also known for slipping in some filler episodes to keep a big enough padding between their anime and the source material.
But it seems like even Studio Pierrot is going to be moving away from this and instead working on a seasonal approach, much like other studios are doing. One of the reasons is because of Demon Slayer, as Honma explained in the interview, even saying that the show's release "was a major turning point for the anime industry".
It was a high-quality work that took a lot of time and a generous budget to make, and it was a big hit when it aired, attracting people from a wide range of age groups. I watched it. Before and after Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba was announced, I really felt that we had to change the way we create things.
Now, Demon Slayer wasn't the first studio to create seasonal works, but it was one of the first big mainstream releases that caught the attention of fans outside the anime fandom — seriously, even my friends who never watched anime watched Demon Slayer.
Demon Slayer showed that even with seasonal content and breaks between seasons, fans would come back to the series when it does release, even managing to build up more hype along the way. These days, almost all anime come out seasonal, so it really does seem like Demon Slayer changed the industry.