The Demon Slayer franchise has been growing rapidly, with a recent movie adaptation and an announcement for a second season of the series. The show is quickly becoming one of the best and most successful anime series in recent years, gaining international attention along with exploding in Japan. With all of the success of the show, something big might affect the upcoming second season.
Ufotable Inc., the animation studio responsible for the popular Demon Slayer series, recently saw its president, Hikaru Kondo, indicted for tax evasion. The company allegedly evaded over 137 million yen in both corporate and consumption taxes. The indictment came after the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau filed a criminal complaint against Ufotable Inc. last February. Per the indictment, Kondo has been evading taxes since 2015. During these years, he has avoided taxes both by not reporting taxable sales between September 2014 and August 2018, in addition to understating the companies income for the fiscal years ending in August 2015, 2017, and 2018.
According to Ufotable, they have settled their tax reports and paid all taxes claimed by Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau. It is unclear how this legal issue will affect any of the animation the company makes or the cafes and restaurants it also runs in Tokyo. The revenue made from the restaurants and cafes was also some of the income the company allegedly hid. With all of the controversy now surrounding the company, which also produced animes like Tales of Zestiria the X and Godeater, some of the creators of these shows may consider finding a new animation studio, but this is not confirmed at this time.
No further information was released about the issue or any effect on the production of Demon Slayer. Tax evasion has been a common problem among many media companies like Sony, Activision, and Blizzard. Some have claimed that paying taxes is reasonably hard for smaller independent companies, while others say there is never an excuse given the millions and billions of dollars these companies make a year. The issue is often continuous with many companies (especially those in video games) but the evasion and fraud never seem to have a direct impact on the continuation of any projects made under them.
Whether or not the popular Demon Slayer franchise or the upcoming season 2 will be affected by this issue is undetermined. The company states that all taxes have been accounted for, so hopefully mean that business and production can continue as usual.
Demon Slayer season 2 does not have a release date yet but should come out sometime within 2021.
Source: The Japan Times