Is JC Staff Next? Report Reveals How Many Anime Studios Went Under in 2025

One Punch Man Season 3 is finally here, and yeah... it looks rough. If you felt your hype deflate after a few episodes, you are not alone. Fans are dragging the animation, and J.C. Staff is taking the heat. But here is the part most people do not see: the studio is not just struggling with One Punch Man. They might be struggling to keep the lights on.

What is actually going on with J.C. Staff

A new report from Teikoku Databank says eight anime studios went under in 2025 alone — some bankrupt, some closed outright. So even while anime is global pop culture’s favorite export, Japanese studios making the stuff are buckling. J.C. Staff is feeling that squeeze, and One Punch Man S3 is showing it in plain sight.

Industry folks have a name for this: 'profitless prosperity' — tons of work, barely any profit, and an exhausted workforce.

Here is the mess in simple terms: the anime pipeline is busier than ever, but the math does not add up. Outsourcing used to save money; now, with the weak yen, overseas work costs more. Studios cannot raise prices, cannot turn down projects, and still cannot pay people what they are worth. The more they work, the more they bleed cash. It is a treadmill — and One Punch Man S3 looks like collateral damage.

J.C. Staff is not some rookie shop

This is the studio behind Food Wars, Toradora!, and A Certain Magical Index — a decades-long fixture with real wins. Which is why the OPM S3 rollout stings so much. Fans showed up expecting spectacle. What they got was a reminder that the industry is running on fumes.

The numbers that explain the slump

• Teikoku Databank says 8 anime studios have already gone under in 2025.
• Between January and September 2025: 2 bankruptcies, 6 shutdowns.
• This is the third straight year the count of failed studios has climbed — and if the trend holds, 2025 could match 2018, one of the industry’s worst years.
• Meanwhile, the hits are huge: Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle has cleared over $591 million worldwide, per Box Office Mojo, and One Piece and Attack on Titan keep pulling global attention.
• There is also a talent crunch. Studios are losing experienced staff and cannot replace them fast enough, which is now delaying productions — several big Fall 2025 shows were pushed because they simply did not have the people.

The industry-nerdy wrinkle: who holds the purse strings

One model getting more attention is the MAPPA move on Chainsaw Man. They ditched the usual production committee setup and funded it themselves. Risky? Totally. But it gave them control and a bigger cut of the profits. Most studios cannot afford that gamble, which is why they stay stuck in a system that caps upside and keeps margins thin.

So where does that leave One Punch Man S3?

Not the comeback fans wanted, but also not just a case of a lazy studio. It is a symptom of a bigger problem: anime has never been more popular worldwide, while the people making it in Japan are burning out and going broke. Eight studios have already vanished this year, and more are wobbling.

One Punch Man Season 3 is streaming on Hulu.

Do you think J.C. Staff can bounce back from the Season 3 backlash, or are we watching a bigger collapse play out in real time?