Hype !!! Madhouse is really cooking some good stuff recently.

Until they announce staff I wouldn't increasing my expectations since orb the movement by madhouse in fall looking decent at best in adaptation.

"prime madhouse is back!!!" and they only produced great quality anime every 2 years and it's under Fukushi lol, Orb looks bland af

Until they announce staff I wouldn't increasing my expectations since orb the movement by madhouse in fall looking decent at best in adaptation.

Until they announce staff I wouldn't increasing my expectations since orb the movement by madhouse in fall looking decent at best in adaptation.

I wholeheartedly welcome Madhouse's comeback. They're killing it with Orb even though it doesn't have the top notch animation of Frieren.

@DeadlyDY There is no such thing as a comeback of Madhouse, Dr Movie does most of the work in Orb, not Madhouse

@feyyazu35

"Dr. Movie does most of the work"? LMAO.

Dr. Movie literally only handled the in-between/finish animation for 3 episodes of Orb. They actually had more involvement in Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 than in this show lol
Also out of the 14 episodes that have aired so far, 7 were outsourced to studios like Hotline, Studio BUS, and Dangun Pictures, but only for animation—the weakest aspect of this anime. On the other hand, the direction, storyboards, and photography—which are this show's strong points—were all done in-house.

"there's no such thing as a Madhouse comeback," it depends on what you mean. If you're referring to the golden era of 2000s Madhouse, then I agree—it’s unlikely any studio, let alone current Madhouse, could reach that level again. However, I’ve seen arguments floating around Twitter suggesting something like this:

"There’s no spontaneous turnaround happening at Madhouse. Their only good shows are led by Fukushi, which come out every couple of years. Those shows make people shout 'Madhouse comeback,' only for everyone to be disappointed when another mediocre project from their other production lines comes out."

If that’s what you meant, there are two major inaccuracies here:

Fukushi isn’t Madhouse’s only strong production line. Atsuko Ishizuka (No Game No Life, A Place Further than the Universe, Goodbye, Don Glees) and Morio Asaka (Chihayafuru, My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999, Cardcaptor Sakura) are also pretty good. While they may not quite match Fukushi’s level, they still deliver quality work.

A turnaround is happening at Madhouse. They have been on a gradual comeback since 2021, when NTV appointed Sanae Tashiro as their 6th president. Her predecessor, Masahiro Takahashi (2015–2021), oversaw what was arguably Madhouse's lowest point in history. During his tenure, every production line suffered—including Fukushi’s, mostly due to that president's bad management combined with their staff gradually moving to other studios founded by their former AniPs, like NUT, VOLN, Mappa or Science Saru.
For example, Boogiepop and ACCA were nowhere near One Punch Man Season 1 or Frieren's quality, which came out before and after that period. The same goes for Overlord Seasons 2 and 3 which were a far cry from the quality of Seasons 1 and 4. Ace of Diamond Act II (2019) devolved into a slideshow compared to its previous seasons, and while Chihayafuru Season 3 managed to avoid a major quality drop, it still faced delays (six months!) and required outsourcing for a whopping 19 of its 24 episodes just to meet deadlines. Let’s not forget the production assistant who collapsed from overwork and even sued the company during that time.

So yes, there is definitely a Madhouse "comeback", or more so a "recovery" if you will. Not necessarily to their prime 2000s glory, but definitely to their pre-2016 level of quality.

@kanarazukarasu First of all, Morio Asaka and Atsuko Ishizuka are also directors, so they are not animation producers, and Fukushi is not only Madhouse's strongest line, but probably the strongest production line in the industry. Even though they are better than previous years, they are still very dependent on external sources and I say Madhouse has not returned because this is Madhouse in general, it is very difficult to change anything in Madhouse now, they will continue like this for a long time and they may not even return to pre-2016 because at that time Tsunaki Takuya, They had Hayashi Masanori and Mita Keiji and they lost them. In short, it's ridiculous to say "Madhouse is back" every time a Madhouse anime comes out.

"prime madhouse is back!!!" and they only produced great quality anime every 2 years and it's under Fukushi lol, Orb looks bland af

@OvergrownRover Orb is an incredible series. If you think it looks bland as fuck then you probably just have a rotting brain stem or something. Frieren is also a generational anime so it's understandable why people are saying "Prime Madhouse is Back", not many studios can pull something like that off.

@Massdrop The reason why my friend Frieren is so good is that his animation producer is Fukushi. Apart from Fukushi, all of Madhouse's other animation producers are average. In short, just because the Frieren anime is very good does not mean that Prime Madhouse is back. This is just classic Fukushi. Even though Orb's story is good, its style seems like it came out of Tezuka Productions, and it is a series that stands out mostly with its direction

@ZXEAN Dude you must be pretty stupid if you actually figured this out lol

just found this manga today and currently reading this and I find out its getting animated by MADHOUSE and airing this year too!!! the only question is how will they handle all the music they use in the manga as i assume it will be a headache getting all that music to be used by all the respective labels that own the music.