Originally slated for an April 22 release in Japan, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero has been delayed after an unauthorized third party hacked Toei Animation.
According to Yahoo! Japan, Toei became aware of the hack on March 6 and shut down one part of its internal system. Doing so impacted the company’s workflow and scheduling, and led to the inevitable decision to push back the Japanese release of the upcoming feature anime, Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero.
“This has made working on productions difficult,” Toei Animation stated in an official release. Because of those hardships, the company said it “has no choice but to delay the movie’s release.
“To those looking forward to the release, we are truly sorry.”
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is the twenty-first Dragon Ball movie. Creator Akira Toriyama is writing the movie’s story and also contributing to Super Hero’s character design. The new movie is set after Dragon Ball Super: Broly, but takes place before the 28th Tenkaichi Budokai.
Last year, we got a closer look at the upcoming movie’s CG animation. This isn’t the first Dragon Ball movie to feature computer animation, but the movie’s trailer certainly seems to show the studio embracing the style.
Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero is not the only anime impacted by the hack. Yahoo! Japan also reports that the hack also hit TV anime, including Dragon Quest: The Adventure of Dai, Delicious Party Precure, Digimon Ghost Game, and One Piece. Toei will air re-runs and specials in the near-term as production tries to get back to normal.
Toei Animation will announce the movie’s new release date at another time in the future, and asked fans to understand the current predicament.
Kotaku has reached out to Toei Animation for comment, but did not hear back prior to publication.