About

MAPPA's Overworked Animators refers to a recurring claim and meme trope about the Japanese anime studio MAPPA employees working overtime to deliver the many projects the company is famous for, such as shows like Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Hell’s Paradise, Kakegurui, Vinland Saga season 2 and Attack On Titan season 4.

Origin

In May 2021, a freelance animator working for MAPPA studio was interviewed by the website Anime News Network^[2] on May 18th, 2021, in which he described the working conditions of the company as “like a factory.”

In early June 2021, a Facebook^[1] post shared a meme showing a fan's reaction to some of the anime being worked on by MAPPA and how their workers feel about it. The meme was uploaded by the page Anime Senpai on June 27th, 2021, receiving 17,000 likes and 3,900 shares in more than a year (seen below).

Spread

Anime fans aware of the work situation of the animators decided to create memes about the tight schedule the workers have to complete their projects before the deadline. The Reddit post below, uploaded by nimuthu_netwan^[3] on September 28th, 2022, shows the new anime being worked on by MAPPA in 2022 and 2023 and their reactions to the amount of work they’ll do.

One Punch Man 3rd Season

A Twitter^[4] rumor by @shonenleaks started to be spread on December 6th, 2022, which had fans buzzing over whether MAPPA anime's studio might be responsible for the third season of the anime One Punch Man. The post garnered 229,000 likes and 40,000 retweets in two days (seen below)

LEAK: ONE PUNCH MAN Season 3 to be animated by MAPPA!! pic.twitter.com/XSMFgdGcZD

— Shonenleaks (@shonenleaks) December 7, 2022

People then shared memes making fun of the anime studio workers' conditions, like this post by @wictor2501, that received 60,600 likes and 4,200 retweets in two days (seen below).

MAPPA employees hearing they have to animate One Punch Man also pic.twitter.com/lM5KIyVjZu

— Wictor (Semi-IA🌊) (@Wictor2501) December 7, 2022

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References