One Punch Man Season 3 likely delayed infinitely as MAPPA struggles

One Punch Man season 3 was confirmed to be in production in August 2022. Unfortunately, despite a wait of over one year, the series has yet to release any other details about the upcoming anime.

The only leak about the same was that MAPPA was set to animate the series. However, that leak was later debunked by the series' official sources themselves.

One Punch Man is a manga series by ONE and Yusuke Murata. While the series was originally created as a webcomic by ONE, it later received a manga adaptation by Yusuke Murata.

Following that, the manga received an anime adaptation in 2015, followed by a second one in 2019. Since then, fans have been waiting for One Punch Man season 3.

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One Punch Man season 3: The anime's delay may be a result of MAPPA

Saitama as seen in One Punch Man anime (Image via Madhouse)

In December 2022, a leak from a now-removed X account @shonenleaks said that One Punch Man season 3 was set to be animated by MAPPA.

The anime's first two seasons were produced by Madhouse and J.C.Staff, respectively. However, after the second season, J.C.Staff received lots of criticism, which pushed the idea that the anime was set to change studios yet again.

Hence, MAPPA, which, at the time, was announcing several anime adaptations seemed the right studio for the same. Unfortunately, soon after @shonenleaks had posted the leak, official sources said that no such decision had been made.

That led to the aforementioned X account being removed. Therefore, fans began to accept the idea that MAPPA may not have actually picked up One Punch Man season 3.

Garou as seen in One Punch Man anime (Image via Madhouse)

However, developments that have taken place since then hint that the leak may have been true.

MAPPA was established in 2011 by former Madhouse employees. In the beginning, they produced some pretty amazing anime like Banana Fish, Kakegurui, Dorehodoro, etc.

Nonetheless, following the acquisition of Attack on Titan, the studio started adapting several big-name projects like Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Vinland Saga and Hell's Paradise: Jigokuraku.

While that helped the studio earn some recognition and generate higher income, the company's employees were also stretched thin with the amount of work.

Genos as seen in One Punch Man anime (Image via Madhouse)

The situation has become ever more evident with the release of Jujutsu Kaisen season 2.

Following the release of the anime, the series animators have come forward on X to talk about the struggles they had been facing due to the poor production planning and conditions imposed on them by MAPPA's senior officials.

The situation has become so bad that some episodes are supposedly getting finished animating hours before their release. That's almost unprecedented in the case of an anime.

Tatsumaki as seen in One Punch Man anime (Image via Madhouse)

The point to be noted is that a 12-episode anime usually takes only a year to get animated.

Considering that One Punch Man season 3 was announced in August 2022, till now, fans should have at least learned which studio was set to animate it. However, no such announcements have been made.

That leads one to believe that the leak of MAPPA adapting One Punch Man season 3 was true. Unfortunately, they needed to clear up their schedule before they could start working on it, which was why they must have debunked the leak.

However, considering the amount of criticism the studio has been receiving, there's a good chance the anime might either switch studios again or get delayed indefinitely.