Next Batter's Circle Co., Ltd. (Next Batter's Circle), the company behind animation studio Tear Studio, ceased all operations on December 13 and submitted preliminary paperwork to file for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy will be formally filed before the end of December.

The news was released on Monday by Tokyo Shoko Research, a long-standing credit reporting agency in Japan, and comes about a week after tweets surfaced about Tear Studio's failure to pay its animators. Around this time, Tear Studio deleted its official Twitter account and removed contact and recruiting info from its official website. On December 10, the official website for the anime film Fragtime published a notice indicating that they had been unable to make contact with the studio. Next Batter's Circle owes roughly 43 million yen (approximately US$392,500), 8 million yen (approximately US$73,000) of which is believed to be owed to about 50 animators.

Founded in 2013, Next Batter's Circle began producing anime in 2018 under the name Tear Studio, debuting with Lord of Vermilion: Guren no Ou—co-produced with Asread—in July of that year. Tear Studio would later produce the Spring 2019 ecchi comedy Nande Koko ni Sensei ga!? and the aforementioned Fragtime, which premiered in Japan on November 22.

Source: IT Media, Tokyo Shoko Research