Since 2016 Studio Deen has been in charge of the anime adaptation of the popular light novel series Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku Wo. Despite a long history in the industry stretching back into the 1970’s, the studio has a dubious reputation for inconsistent animation work. Multiple projects have been plagued by noticeable animation deficiencies, examples including Ranma 1/2, Fate/stay night, Weiß Kreuz, and others.
KonoSuba, meanwhile, has received a generally positive response among fans who are impressed with the production values, claiming it makes the series look “more unique”. The staff, meanwhile, are confident that they won’t let this unfamiliar praise affect them.
“We used to get a lot of complaints about off-model characters and messy looking animation”, an animator told Anime Maru. “When we realized the fans found the quality funny, the entire situation completely reversed.”
“We’re getting orders to implement more and more bad quality into this series to keep fans happy. At this point we’re aiming to make the animation as ironically as bad as possible.”
According to insiders, the episode next week will have a special focus on ironically bad directing, supposedly reflected in the high amount of still images, uninspiring camera-angles and characters just standing around most of the time. The following episode will take the irony even further and air just unfinished storyboards with audio completely reused from the earlier episodes.
So far it’s unclear how deep the rabbit hole goes, but wild speculation suggests it’s entirely possible that Studio Deen will “accidentally” forget to finish producing the final episodes of the season. As the irony is hitting levels previously thought to be impossible, the future of KonoSuba is at stake.
Outside KonoSuba Studio Deen is planning to utilize the bad quality on other series too, as the studio has suddenly discovered a way to turn their weaknesses into profit. The official statement from Studio Deen is that “series is not actually bad if it’s just being ironic”.