Attack on Titan’s second season is only getting 12 episodes

Attack on Titan’s second season premieres tomorrow, but fans may disappointed to learn they’ll only get 12 episodes.

The show’s first season had 21 episodes and a number of specials. The studio hasn’t said why the new season will only have 12 episodes. While many people have their own theories, one animator who has worked in the industry for years on projects like Code Lyoko and Space Dandies, has credited it to the overwhelming demand for anime from Western companies and not enough people working in the industry.

Thomas Romain started tweeting about it after the studio confirmed the episode count. Romain said that because of demand from companies like Netflix asking for full series in a limited time frame and not giving them the required budget to hire more people, the number of episodes made available to fans lessened.

When people started asking follow-up questions, Romain reiterated that the biggest issue was the lack of budget studios were given to hire people in order to make the series. Shows like Attack on Titan, he said, only get a few months of production time. It makes it incredibly difficult to make more than 12 good shows in such a small amount of time.

The studio has not commented on the number of episodes, but Polygon has reached out for comment and will update when more information becomes available. Attack on Titan’s second season can be streamed through services like Crunchyroll beginning tomorrow.