Over one month ago, Toei Animation Studio was hacked. When Toei announced the hack nearly a week later, they added the news that the broadcast schedules for four of their biggest shows—One Piece, Dragon Quest: The Adventures of Dai, Digimon Ghost Game, and Delicious Party Precure—would be affected. Toei did not say for how long, however. And so the weeks dragged on … and on … and on. No news arose about when I would be able to see the continued adventures of my best friends Luffy and Yamato. But, finally, news came: While the next Dragon Ball Super film continues to be affected, all four anime series will resume this weekend.
Crunchyroll reported via the NHK that hacking was actually a targeted ransomware virus. This means that access to the animation studio’s internal assets on its servers were restricted by an outside third party unless a ransom fee was paid. As illustrated by the long delay in these high-profile shows’ broadcast schedules, the attack had a significant and ongoing effect on production. According to Anime News Network, Toei even stated that it was uncertain if it could “completely restore what was lost in the attack.”
When Toei confirmed the existence of the virus in its internal system, it shut those systems down completely to mitigate and investigate the virus’s damage. The four affected anime returned to production a few weeks later. However, the pace of production was slowed down, since Toei’s internal system is still not fully operational. My heart pours out endless sympathy for everyone working on these series at Toei. They likely had to redo work they’d already finished, and you can just imagine that a half-functional system makes everything more tedious. As I watch Yamato being excellent this weekend, I will appreciate them even more than usual.
The ransomware attack also affected the upcoming film Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero, which was slated to open on April 22 in Japan. It seems the film was the hardest hit of all, because Toei still hasn’t announced an updated release date. But on the fortunate end of things, the four affected anime series will return to their usual time slots on beginning on Friday, April 15. Simulcasts for Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai will resume on Friday, with One Piece, Digimon Ghost Game, and Delicious Party Pretty Cure picking up on Saturday. All four series can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
(featured image: Toei Animation)
