Anime studio addresses reports of North Korean involvement in production

A report by Japanese news site Jiji.com suggested that animators from North Korea might have been involved in subcontract work on Japanese anime. The evidence comes from 38 North, a website that analyzes events in and around North Korea. Since this news broke on Tuesday, one of the anime studios named has been investigating the matter. 

According to the 38 North website, anime-related files had been saved to a cloud server believed to be operated by North Korea. The shows affected include the Japanese anime Dahlia in Bloom, which is scheduled to be broadcast in July. Files were found containing the name of an anime production company based in Sapporo, Japan. Evidence that suggested North Korean animators’ involvement in the US Amazon Original animation Invincible was also discovered. The animation images on the server had comments written in Chinese and Korean.  

However, there is apparently no evidence to suggest that the Japanese and American animation companies were aware that their work was being outsourced to North Korean subcontractors. The studio responsible for the Dahlia in Bloom anime have since taken to X to address the matter, stating that they were not aware of the situation and are currently carrying out an investigation. 

The server was apparently accessed from China’s Liaoning Province, which borders North Korea and is thought to be home to many of the country’s IT professionals. Commenters on X suspect that a Chinese subcontractor shared the workload with North Korean animators, without the Japanese production company’s knowledge, However, the full story behind the situation has yet to be confirmed.