Voozh

"Listen up, TV shows: you can’t let a full election cycle pass between seasons and expect me to remember what the hell is going on! You’re like a deadbeat dad: you go out for a pack of smokes and I don’t see you for three years, and then you expect to just pick up where we left off?"

—Seth Meyers, Late Night

When a work "pauses" without being officially cancelled.

Very common with "independent" works that rely on just one or a very small number of people to complete. The lead becomes too busy with a "real job", too tired, away on vacation or needing time to catch up, rather than allow an extended Schedule Slip, they may resort to announce an intentional break in the series, usually with a pre-set return date. Unfortunately, it is not rare for what is intended to be a short hiatus to become permanent.

It should be noted that since many Web Series are made for fun, instead of for profit and Fan Fiction cannot be legally used for profit, by default, their creators will often have to go on hiatus to take care of their own personal needs and may only be able to continue work on their series, when they find free time in between work, school, etc.

When it happens with a professional franchise, it is usually due to the monetary return for the most recent work being below expectations, causing the money managers to halt further development with a vague desire to return to it at a later date. More rarely, the people in charge like a showrunner, head writer or lead actors can cause a series to go on a hiatus without being cancelled.

Compare Un-Canceled, as a work that manages that trope will undoubtedly come across as this, and serial examples of The Shelf of Movie Languishment, where production has finished but premiers were held off until much later. Compare and contrast Irregular Series (a serial's installments don't air on a regular schedule but intermittently).

Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Many anime series tend to take a week-long break during late December or early January for the New Year, since special one-off programming themed around the holiday is usually slated to air in their timeslots.
Aside from New Year's break, the Sunday morning block of children's programming on TV Asahi tends to take a week-long break for two other occasions each year: the U.S. Open in the summer (which has happened since 2017) and Ekiden in November. The former break usually happens right before the episode introducing the Sixth Ranger in the current Pretty Cure installment.
Beet the Vandel Buster went on hiatus for nearly ten years (2006 to 2016) after artist Koji Inada became too ill to work on it. After the manga's return in Jump SQ.Crown in April 2016, it went on hiatus again in October of the same year. It finally returned in April 2018 in Jump SQ.Rise (since Crown had ceased publication during that period).
Kentaro Miura was as infamous as Yoshihiro Togashi for his long breaks in the publishing of Berserk, so much so that the fact that Guts and his companions being on a boat for seven years in real time became a meme. There were all sorts of rumors as to why, but no one really knows the reason. Miura's death in 2021 left the future of the series uncertain until just over a year later it was announced that his lifelong friend and fellow author Kouji Mori (of Holyland and Suicide Island fame) would work with Miura's assistants to conclude the story.
Black Lagoon: Rei Hiroe put out Volume 9 in 2009. Good thing he finally announced he was going to resume writing again in 2012 👁 Image
. Except... the announcement was made back in March 2012. He finally got out a chapter in March 2013... only for him to announce the next chapter would be released around June. He managed to get chapters out until February 2014... and then stopped once more. It may not be a coincidence that in May 2014, Volume 10 came out... and it covered up to Chapter 87, which was the last chapter from February. One wonders if his publishing company was just nagging him to put out enough content to create another volume. The English release of that volume was in April 2015, but for a long time there was no word on when (or if) Hiroe would have more chapters ready. Eventually it was revealed that the reason for the hiatus was because Hiore was working on Re:CREATORS with Ei Aoki. Once that show started airing, new Black Lagoon chapters started releasing again in May 2017 (over three years after the previous release). Then the manga went on hiatus again in August 2018 after Chapter 101, though in this case it concluded the arc (and it was also just enough chapters to publish Volume 11). The next arc began publishing in September 2019... on a bi-monthly basis, and the chapters just kept getting shorter and shorter: Chapter 104 was only nine pages long. Chapters used to be 24 pages on average.
Following the death of TARAKO, who voiced the titular character, Chibi Maruko-chan went on hiatus and showed reruns for a month until a new voice actress was found.
CLAMP is very notorious of this. X/1999 has been in hiatus since 2003. There were talks of CLAMP planning to continue the series as long as there's a magazine willing to publish it, but the following decade would pass with several of their old series such as Tsubasa -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-, ×××HOLiC, and Cardcaptor Sakura returning; X/1999 remained incomplete all that time. Drug & Drop and Gate7 have also been on hiatus since 2014, not helped by how CLAMP continued the former in 2011. Then in 2016, ×××HOLiC: Rei went on hiatus and, initially, it was supposed to return in Spring 2023 once CLAMP finished Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card. However, it was delayed to April 2025.
In September 2009, the Crayon Shin-chan anime took a month-long hiatus for undisclosed reasons, though many fans mistakenly believed it was due to Yoshito Usui's death around the same time.
Katsura Hoshino took a hiatus from D.Gray-Man from November 2008 to March 2009 due to an injury, then while fans were enjoying the return, it started a whole new hiatus in April. The series was on hiatus again from December 2012 to July 2015, though Hoshino resumed the series with a catch: the series is now on a quarterly release schedule instead of monthly. On the plus side, a new anime adaptation aired in summer 2016 that continued where the 2008 series left off.
Daisuki! BuBu ChaCha suffered a one-year hiatus between Season 1 (1999) and Season 2 (2001).
Noteworthy for happening so soon within a series, after five chapters of DEAD Tube, Champion RED magazine announced that the series would be held back for several issues (it's a monthly serial) in 2014, coming back only in December — albeit back with a vengeance ever since it brought a major Plot Twist with it.
The Doraemon anime took a month-long hiatus between the 1979 series and the 2005 series.
Dal-Young Lim and Kwang-Hyun Kim put Freezing on hiatus in April 2019 after the release of Chapter 225 due to circumstances involving the authors.
From Eroica with Love is a very long-running manga, beginning serialization in 1976 and ending in 2012, though it went on hiatus from 1989 to 1995.
Fruits Basket took an extended break after about 36 chapters because Natsuki Takaya injured her drawing hand. She came back after a few months and finished the series.
Yuu Watase had taken a decade to actually complete Fushigi Yuugi: Genbu Kaiden due to having several series going on. When she finally seemed to begin work on Fushigi Yuugi: Byakko Ibun in 2015 and no more updates had occured since, she revealed her intent of leaving Byakko Ibun as a one-shot chapter for the time being, while she focused most of her time on Arata: The Legend.
Gamerz Heaven appears to be on hiatus, but some speculate that the non sequitur cliffhanger the last chapter finished with could just be a really, really lame ending.
Kohta Hirano with his series Hellsing: The Dawn. He felt like stopping out of nowhere in 2007 but Young King Comics (specifically the Young King OURs magazine) did not declare the series as finished or cancelled. If it ever comes back to serialization, the fans will probably have forgotten about the series altogether.
Hibiki's Magic was on hiatus from 2007 to 2013. There were a few chapters released in between, in 2008 and 2011 respectively, but it did not resume regular publication until early 2013, and since released on a fairly consistent bimonthly schedule up until its conclusion in Volume 4 three years later.
Hunter × Hunter has gone through multiple hiatuses.
- The longest one lasted nearly four years (from November 26th, 2018 to October 24th, 2022), due to Yoshihiro Togashi's health problems. There's even a chart set up 👁 Image
  to count how long the periods of hiatus have lasted. As of January 31st, 2026, Hunter × Hunter has been on hiatus for 923 issues of Shonen Jump, compared to 412 issues that contained a chapter, meaning that it's been on hiatus for over 69% of its existence.
- It's gotten to the point that both the 1999 and the 2011 anime adaptations (mind you, that's a difference of 12 years between adaptations) were Cut Short (the 1999 adaptation ran for 62 televised episodes and 30 additional OVA episodes, while the 2011 anime ran for 148 televised episodes).
Idol Dreams has been on hiatus since August 2020, with its latest release being its 40th chapter. Fans speculate that Arina Tanemura is much busier with her other job as a character designer for the IDOLiSH7 franchise, as well as also being an artist for album covers for various K-pop artists.
Although JoJo's Bizarre Adventure rarely has any hiatus during publication, Hirohiko Araki tends to take breaks after finishing a Part. The first occurred after Golden Wind was finished, which lasted for nine months until Stone Ocean began. After Stone Ocean ended, another break lasted for about ten months until coming back for Steel Ball Run. The third, and longest, hiatus after the completion of JoJolion, lasted for a year and six months until returning for the start of The JoJoLands.
Kingdom Hearts II: After Volume 5 came out, the manga was put on hold while Shiro Amano worked on the adaptation of Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days.
Lucky Star went on a lengthy hiatus from 2014 to 2022, due to creator Kagami Yoshimizu working on another project. When the manga resumed, it also switched magazines from Comptiq to Mitaina!.
Magic Kaito began in 1987 but has technically been on hiatus since 1988; since then, creator Gosho Aoyama only occasionally draws new chapters for it while working more regularly on his other long-running manga, Case Closed. Only three new volumes have been released since the first two were published; the third volume was published in 1994, the fourth in 2007, and the fifth in 2017.
Magical Record Lyrical Nanoha Force went on an indefinite hiatus quite literally in the middle of a chapter — the first half of Chapter 31 was published in June 2013, and fans were left waiting for the second one ever since. The hiatus had multiple possible reasons, ranging from the Broken Base caused by the manga among longtime fans, to the main writer having to juggle another ongoing manga in the same continuity, its anime adaptation, and a whole bunch of assorted media for the Nanoha INNOCENT spin-offs. There now seems to be little chance it will continue with the magazine it was serialized in, Nyantype, ceasing publication in late 2017.
March Comes in Like a Lion entered hiatus upon reaching its 97th chapter due to the author needing surgery for an unspecified reason.
Hayao Miyazaki started the manga version of Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in 1982, regularly stopping the comic — sometimes for over a year at a time — to work on his films (beginning, naturally, with the Nausicaa movie).^noteNotably, during one of these pauses, Miyazaki's political philosophy changed as he gave up on his Marxist beliefs, partly due to the nature of the story he was writing, and partly due to the fall of communism in Hungary. Because of this, it took Hayao over 12 years to complete the manga, though Miyazaki said in an interview shortly after its completion that it amounted, in his view, to about five years of work.
Nana went on hiatus in 2009, as the author had some health problems. She has since recovered, but has not yet given word on when or if she will continue the manga.
One Piece:
- The manga rarely takes longer hiatuses (among the few examples are one month's hiatus before the Time Skip and a couple of weeks when Eiichiro Oda was admitted to the hospital), but it has become rather well-known for taking many more breaks than most of the other big shonen series. Currently, it is usually on break every third or fourth week (sometimes even more often). Sometimes it's because Oda is doing research, but other times no reason is given.
- On October 13th, 2024, it was announced that the anime, following the airing of its 1,122nd episode^noteConcluding the portion of the Egghead Arc where Admiral Monkey D. Garp rescues Koby from the Blackbeard Pirates (Chapters 1080-1088), would be going on a six-month hiatus in order to give the animators a break before adapting the Egghead arc's final act. A special episode called One Piece Fan Letter, followed by a condensed, graphically-improved Re-Cut of the Return to Sabaody and Fishman Island arcs called One Piece Log: Fish-Man Island Saga, would be aired during that time to fill the gap.
Our Last Crusade or the Rise of a New World had its anime adaptation start its second season in July 2024. However, after only airing four episodes, the anime's official Twitter/X account announced in that same month the show had to stop broadcasting because of quality issues in production. It would take over half a year of complete silence before the season was announced in March 2025 that it would restart its broadcast in April 2025.
Pokémon: The Original Series went on a four-month hiatus after the Porygon incident, so that the producers could investigate and revise the guidelines on what animation techniques were appropriate for television viewing.
Ranking of Kings went on hiatus after publishing Chapter 232 in April 2023. It would be 21 months before the manga resumed publication in January 2025.
At the end of March 2013, Gangan Online announced Shindere Shoujo to Kodoku na Shinigami had been put on indefinite hiatus due to the writer, Masaki Himura, having a sudden illness. Himura passed away in 2015, leaving the manga unfinished.
There was a long delay between the second and third volumes of Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro due to the manga going on hiatus in 2009 in Japan, but the third volume was eventually released in November 2012.
TerraforMARS went on hiatus in December 2018 due to ill health of its author. It would take over 5 years for the series to begin publishing new chapters again in April 2024.
Technically happened with Trigun, although it was sort of out of Yasuhiro Nightow's control: the original magazine the title was serialized in folded, and when he was hired by Young King Comics a year later they asked him to restart his old series instead of creating a new one.
In Ultimate Muscle, the Tag Team arc/series ended in 2008 with the day saved once again, but it didn't really end as a true climax for the whole Nisei series, leaving the series open for more adventures if needed. However, it seems the inclusion of the original Choujin from Kinnikuman, at their prime, reignited interested for OG cast, so in 2010 the original Kinnikuman manga, which by all means had a very conclusive end, resumed serialization and as of 2021 still is ongoing. This effectively put the Nisei series at an undefined stopping point, unclear as to if or when it will ever resume serialization.
Unico went on a brief hiatus in early 1977 due to Osamu Tezuka suddenly getting hospitalized before working on "The Cat on the Broomstick" chapter. During his stay, he was able to properly envision the chapter's storyline with some of the emotional moments between Unico and Chao the cat were based on his unpleasent hospital stay.
Why the Hell Are You Here, Teacher!? went on hiatus in August 2020 as the author Soborou had been struggling with health issues for years and his situation had finally hit a breaking point at that time. It would take a full four years for the manga to return in August 2024, and even this comeback would only last just long enough to create an ending for it, as the series then officially finished publication two months later in October 2024.
World Trigger went on an abrupt hiatus in late 2016 due to the author's health, eventually returning two years later, although moving from the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine to the monthly Jump Square.
Yuri Is My Job! went on indefinite hiatus in March 2024 due to the manga artist's declining health.

Comic Books

Mega Man (Archie Comics) was put into indefinite hiatus and unofficially cancelled in December 2015, right as the comic was about to adapt the events of Mega Man 4. Issue 55, the last one released before the comic ended, revolves around Dr. Light getting into an accident involving a time machine and seeing visions of the future, specifically the classic games not yet adapted into the comic, along with the X, Zero, ZX, and Legends subseries — in other words, he gets to see the legacy of Mega Man. The series now has little chance of continuing because everyone who worked on it moved to IDW.
Pearl by Brian Michael Bendis was originally planned to be a six-issue miniseries, but due to the success of the comic, it was upgraded into an ongoing, skipping a month in order to prepare the seventh issue.
Geoff Johns' Shazam! (2012) was put into hiatus Mid-2013, at the conclusion of its initial story arc. The story resumed in Shazam! (2018), more than five years later. The main character of Shazam! remained active in The DCU's crossover storylines during the interim, however.

Comic Strips

The best known cases in print comics were the more-than-yearlong breaks taken by Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau in 1983 and The Far Side by Gary Larson in 1989, and the shorter breaks taken by Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson in 1991 and 1994 and Peanuts from Charles Schulz in late 1997. In the business, these are known as "sabbaticals". Gary has gone on week-long vacations every now and then since the long break, with reruns being published in place. He also took a 3-month break in 2008. Doonsbury has been on "long-term hiatus" since Feb. 2014, due to Garry focusing his energies on Alpha House (Sunday strips are new).
Tom Pappalardo published the comic strip Whiskey! Tango! Foxtrot! from 2007-2008, took a year off, and returned in 2010 with a retooled layout, renaming it The Optimist.

Fan Works

The last story update in The CATverse was posted in October 2012, and in 2016 the writers announced an official hiatus from the series due to time commitments in real life.
On July 19, 2017, Continuance went on a planned hiatus, partly so that the author could focus on his other fic, Change of Engagement.
Danganronpa 69’s sequel, Danganronpa 69: Ultra Despair Gang: Really, ANOTHER Episode? has been on indefinite hiatus since August 2021, just three months after beginning development (and one month after the series was last updated). The creator stated they lost interest and would likely not be finishing the fic, though they are currently working on a different sequel, Danganronpa 96.
Beginning on January 14th, 2017, The PreDespair Kids sequel story, The Despair Kids, was placed on hiatus for a few months. This was because Mod J attempted to avoid spoilers for Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony, which were annoyingly prevalent on Tumblr at the time thanks to dataminers, until he played the game for himself. When V3's western release was confirmed for September 2017, he then calculated that the hiatus should end sometime between March and July 2017, with small updates also being possible. However, a change in his software prevented him from using the extensions that blocked spoilers, and a lot of details about the game had been spoiled for him anyway, so he decided there was really no point to delay working on the story. The hiatus ended on February 13th, 2017.
Godzilla: Replay, the sequel to the NES Godzilla Creepypasta, hasn't been updated since 2013, and the creator announced that the story is on an indefinite hiatus (although not cancelled).
A Hunter or Something: Due to scheduling conflicts with their respective jobs, Coeur ended up putting the fanfic on hold in 2018 until he and his co-author had more free time, since he considered the the story College Fool's idea and working without him wouldn't reflect that. With College Fool not having written anything since 2018, A Hunter or Something has since been presumed Quietly Cancelled.
The fics of Loyal2Luna, including Doctor Whooves – The Series and Mass Effect: The Equestrian Equation sequel Shades of Twilight, were declared Dead Fics by their editor 2dextreem in 2017 after over a year of hearing nothing from Loyal, with 2dextreem writing a final chapter for Shades of Twilight to wrap up the cliffhanger and current story arc. Loyal returned to working on them in 2021.
Nobody Dies got hit with this hard in February of 2012, where after chapter 110, it simply stopped updating for months. When questioned, the author responded that he had written himself into a corner and was trying to work out how to get the story back on track. However, after spending almost one decade assuring his fans that a continuation was still possible, the author ended admitting that he had erased all his notes.
The Skyhold Academy Yearbook series went on an unplanned hiatus for about six months between late 2018 and early 2019, due to the winter holidays and one of the authors moving house.

Films — Live-Action

Godzilla has had two major hiatuses in its seventy-plus year history, both for the same reason: declining ticket sales. The first was a nearly ten-year gap between Terror of Mechagodzilla and The Return of Godzilla (March 1975 to December 1984), which was a Darker and Edgier Continuity Reboot. The second was another nearly ten-year gap between Godzilla: Final Wars and Godzilla (2014) (December 2004 to May 2014), or a nearly twelve-year gap with Shin Godzilla (July 2016) if you only count the Japanese films.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe went on hiatus after the release of Spider-Man: Far From Home in July 2, 2019. It was planned to resume on May 1, 2020, which would mark the release of Black Widow (2021), but the COVID-19 Pandemic forced the Phase 4 premiere to be held off until January 15, 2021 with the premiere of WandaVision instead, resulting in the hiatus lasting for a year and a half.

Literature

Light Novels have many examples of this situation happening. The format's publishing style relies on a steady release of volumes that are typically shorter than regular literary novels and tend to use simpler vocabulary, which in theory should enable multiple releases a year (with authors expected to release a new volume at least once a year). A general rule of thumb is that if a light novel series doesn't release anything for over two years without any word from the author or publisher, it's time to start worrying.
- 9S (no relation to the character from NieR: Automata; the title is shorthand for "Security System Sealing Savage Science Smartly (with) Supreme Sagacious Strength") published its eleventh volume in March 2012. It would then disappear for over a decade, until the story suddenly finished by simultaneously publishing its twelfth and thirteenth volumes in February 2024.
- Absolute Duo released Volume 11 in July 2016 and then went dead silent after that. Its manga adaptation then ended a year later in July 2017. In a very strange twist, the 12th volume was supposed to come out on February 25, 2017, but its release was postponed. Volume 12's page is still up 👁 Image
  , showing that it remains "postponed" to this day.
- Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero has not released a new light novel since Volume 13 came out in February 2013. The author clearly moved on to The Testament of Sister New Devil and never looked back after that, even after Testament finished publishing.
- Amalgam Hound released two light novels in July and September of 2022, but stopped after that despite the story being incomplete. A third story arc serving as the series finale was completed in April 2023 as a webnovel 👁 Image
  , but Kadokawa has never bothered to have it published as a light novel.
- Assassin's Pride has not released a new light novel since Volume 13 came out in March 2021. Its anime adaptation in Fall 2019 was a production mess, and its manga adaptation ended in August 2022, leaving the future of this series uncertain.
- Bottom-tier Character Tomozaki took exactly two years to release Volume 11 in January 2024, coinciding with its anime's second season beginning broadcast that same month. The volume's afterword had the author Yuuki Yaku apologizing for the long delay, while also promising that Volume 12 was already largely written and would be releasing in a matter of months. Except that turned out not to be the case at all. In December 2024, Yaku admitted on his Twitter account that he was having more trouble than he expected 👁 Image
  writing the volume. The last update on the volume's status came from the series editor in April 2025 who posted that he was still having meetings with Yaku 👁 Image
  regarding progress on the volume. With January 2026 having come and gone, no new release makes this now the longest publishing gap in the series history. And with its anime finished and two manga adaptations also having wrapped up, what lies ahead for the series is uncertain.
- Clockwork Planet published Volume 4 in December 2015 and then seemed to promptly die after that, with a single anime season airing in Spring 2017 and the manga adaptation ending in August 2018. Given that this series was written as a collaborative effort with two authors, one of them being the writer of No Game No Life (which also had its share of rocky hiatuses from 2016 onward thanks to his poor health), it was probably too much trouble to coordinate between them.
- Combatants Will Be Dispatched! released its seventh volume in June 2022, a year after its anime ended, and hasn't had any more novels published since then. The manga adaptation also ended in March 2024. The most likely explanation for the lack of new material is that Natsume Akatsuki is busy writing for and assisting with production of more content for his much more popular series KonoSuba: despite that series being complete as a light novel, it continues to receive additional anime, video game, and manga adaptations.
- Durarara!!'s sequel series, SH, only released up to Volume 4 as of February 2016 and went quiet after that. Its author, Ryohgo Narita, saw his writing pace drop significantly around this time due to health problems, as this also affected another major series of his, Baccano!, which also stopped releases after Volume 22 came out in August of that same year. By the time his health improved and he was able to start writing more regularly, he elected to devote much of his time to Fate/strange Fake instead, leaving those other two series hanging.
- The Faraway Paladin last released Volume 4^noteTechnically the fifth volume, since Volume 3 was split into two books in September 2017, and nothing new after that, even with the series getting two anime seasons that aired in Fall 2021 and 2023. In December 2021, the author revealed in an interview 👁 Image
  that he has a mental illness called adjustment disorder that has been crippling his ability to write. The series currently only remains alive thanks to its manga adaptation still being published.
- Shoji Gatou abandoned two series of his in the same year: Amagi Brilliant Park had Volume 8 come out in June 2016 and ended with a minor cliffhanger and unresolved plot points, with no news on any more releases. Then just a few months later, Cop Craft stopped publishing anything new after Volume 6 was released in October 2016. This is in spite of the series getting an anime adaptation that aired in 2019. Gatou's next light novel release wouldn't be until January 2024 when he would return to the Full Metal Panic! franchise with a sequel series, Full Metal Panic! Family.
- The Genius Prince's Guide to Raising a Nation Out of Debt (Hey, How About Treason?) released Volume 12 in September 2022, the only new volume the series has gotten since its anime adaptation aired earlier that year. No news has surfaced on any further releases, and the series' only new content is coming from its manga adaptation. In November 2024, the author posted on his Twitter account 👁 Image
  that he had gotten burnt out on the series after the anime finished and Volume 12 had published, and admitted that he hadn't even started any work on Volume 13 yet.
- Goblin Slayer released Volume 16 in mid-July 2022 and hasn't had any new novels come out since, which is noteworthy as it had never missed releasing annually since it started in 2016. The anime had a second season that aired in Fall 2023 to a rather tepid reception, and as of 2024, the only activity for the franchise is from its manga adaptations and a Strategy RPG called Nightmare Feast. The author, Kumo Kagyu, appears to have put the light novels on hold as he started writing a new series, Blade & Bastard, that started publishing in December 2022 and has been releasing new volumes consistently since then.
- Haruhi Suzumiya went on hiatus in 2007 after The Dissociation of Haruhi Suzumiya ended on a cliffhanger. The conclusion was released in 2011, only for the series to go on hiatus again after the announcement of at least one more book. Nagaru Tanigawa had been completely silent until 2018, where he released a couple of short stories to coincide with the release of The Sneaker Legend, and the final volume of The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi-chan respectively, but had given no word on if the books would continue until August 2020, when the 12th volume was finally announced, nine years after the release of Surprise. In November 2020, The Intuition of Haruhi Suzumiya was at long last released. It would then take another four years for The Theater of Haruhi Suzumiya to release in November 2024. To add insult to injury, both Intuition and Theater are short story collections that had mostly been previously published, and they have little newly written content in them.
- The Hero is Overpowered but Overly Cautious has not released a new novel since Volume 7 came out in December 2019, and its manga adaptation also ended in October 2022. When the author did an AMA thread on Reddit in June 2021 to promote his new series Full Dive, he very conspicuously avoided answering any questions related to Cautious Hero's status. Then Full Dive fell into this situation as well after releasing Volume 4 literally just the next month in July 2021: no more releases have come out, and he started a new series called Suzuki is Cute Even In A Savage World in March 2022.
- The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter released Volume 6 in December 2020 and the novels went quiet after that. Interestingly enough, the story is complete as a webnovel, while the manga adaptation ended in June 2023.
- High School D×D's most recent light novel release was from the side story series High School DxD DX with Volume 7 in March 2022. On top of that, the main story's sequel series, Shin High School DxD, hasn't released a new volume since Volume 4 in February 2020. Fans have wondered what's going on with the author Ichiei Ishibumi, but while there has been some speculation about health problems, no concrete details have been specified.
- I'm the Villainess, So I'm Taming the Final Boss released its 11th volume at the tail end of December 2022, just a week and a half after its anime ended, and has not published anything new since. Its manga adaptation had already ended years earlier in 2019 after only covering the first volume, so it's up in the air what's happening with the series now.
- In the Land of Leadale last released Volume 8 in January 2022. The story surpassed its previously written webnovel content a while ago, which is certainly a reason for the lack of new content. The manga adaptation continues in its place.
- Infinite Stratos left off on a major cliffhanger with its main character Ichika dying from a stab wound to the heart and his sister Chifuyu desperately trying to keep him alive when Volume 12 released in April 2018, with the author stating in the afterword that the next volume would be the end. However, after all this time, there has been no word on said ending being released to this day. Apart from writing some short stories on his social media accounts, there has been no activity from the author on his series since then.
- The Isolator released Volume 5 in May 2019 and has had no more activity after that. Those who keep up with Reki Kawahara's writing can clearly see the man is prioritizing his other light novel series: Accel World, Sword Art Online, and Demons' Crest.
- Knight's & Magic stalled with the release of Volume 11 in November 2021. Its manga adaptation also ended a few months later in March 2022. The next activity the series saw was the surprise announcement of an English license by J-Novel Club in July 2023, but it didn't appear to have spurred on the author to continue writing. At least not immediately, as Volume 12 eventually finally released in December 2025, over four years after the previous entry.
- Kyo Kara Maoh! released Volume 17 in January 2010 and went on hiatus after that. Its manga continued for much longer until it ended in July 2016.
- The Legend of the Legendary Heroes had its sequel series, The Legend of the Great Legendary Heroes, release Volume 17 in October 2017. This was over two years after Volume 16 had come out in September 2015, the longest publishing gap in the series. The afterword also stated that the next volume would be the ending.👁 Image
  Said volume would then take over seven and a half years to release, with Volume 18 eventually finishing the story on May 20, 2025.
- The Magic in This Other World Is Too Far Behind! had a lot of drama erupt behind the scenes between author Gamei Hitsuji and publisher Overlap when it came time to release Volume 9. Originally set to release in early 2018, Overlap delayed publication by over a year and a half that by the time the volume came out in October 2019, Gamei had grown so frustrated during the interim that he started a new series in 2018 with Micro Magazine, The Magician Who Rose From Failure, and seemed to have lost motivation to continue the story. It would take nearly 4.5 years for Magic in this Other World to come off of hiatus with Volume 10, which eventually published in February 2024.
- Me, a Genius? I Was Reborn into Another World released its third volume in August 2016 and abruptly stopped after that. It isn't even complete in its webnovel form either, so it's anyone's guess why the author seemed to have just given up on the story.
- Has happened twice with Yukiya Murasaki's works. The first time with Altina the Sword Princess which last published Volume 14 in September 2018, the afterword of that book noted that he was putting Altina on pause since his other series, How Not to Summon a Demon Lord was selling so well. Then the same thing occurred with that series after it released Volume 14 in June 2021: it missed releasing anything in 2022 and 2023, with no word on why.
- Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu went through two long gaps in publishing: the first was after Volume 4 was released in December 2015 and took until April 2018 to release Volume 5. The second is its current state, with Volume 7 having published in July 2021 and still no word on the next release. The series continues on with its manga adaptation.
- Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they? completed its first part with 12 volumes from March 2011 to April 2015. It began Part 2, known as Last Embryo, in June 2015, but it last released Volume 8 in July 2020. With both its anime and manga adaptations having finished in 2013 and 2014, respectively, the series appears to be on ice.
- Reincarnated as a Dragon Hatchling last released Volume 16 in June 2022. While the source itself is stalled, the manga adaptation continues and an anime adaptation was announced in March 2025. Volume 17 would finally release after over three and a half years in January 2026, just a few days before the anime began airing.
- Restaurant to Another World hasn't published anything new since Volume 6's release in October 2021. The manga adaptation for the series continues on.
- The Rising of the Shield Hero has stalled on releasing new volumes since Volume 22 came out in June 2019. In spite of having multiple ongoing manga adaptations and an anime adaptation that is currently up to 5 seasons, there is still no word on when the story will continue. While the webnovel version is complete, it became vastly different from the published version a long time ago, so much so that it would be impossible for the light novels to share the same ending that the WN had.
- Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers is an infamous example, as its last activity was a spin-off novel released in March 2016 (its last mainline release was Volume 6 in July 2015). The author never wrote any more content and never explained why; the English translator for the series suspected that he hadn't planned far enough ahead and had probably written himself into a corner that he couldn't get out of.👁 Image
- Roll Over and Die released Volume 4 in January 2020. It would then take almost five and a half years to continue, with Volume 5 being released at the end of May 2025, and as an ebook only at that. The author has promised the series will be finished with 8 volumes.
- The Saint's Magic Power Is Omnipotent last published Volume 9 in March 2023, followed later that same year by its spinoff manga ending in September 2023 and the second season of its anime also finishing at the end of that year, having adapted up to Volume 8. With no word on when the next light novel will be released, only its main story manga adaptation is still continuing for the series.
- Skeleton Knight in Another World took three years to release Volume 10 in March 2022, which some suspect was largely thanks to pressure from the publisher since its anime adaptation began airing a mere three weeks later. There has been no news of additional volumes coming out since, and the series' only new content comes from its manga adaptation... at least, until a second season of the anime was surprisingly announced in December 2024.
- There Was No Secret Evil Fighting Organization put out two volumes in February and August 2019 and then seemed to have gotten abruptly cancelled but no announcement was ever made. The actual complete story can only be found in its webnovel form which consists of around 7 volumes of content.
The Adventures of Pinocchio originally started to be published in serial form on an Italian magazine in 1881, but the story stopped after only eight installments; after popular demand from the readers, it was Un-Canceled and completed with the remaining episodes.

Live-Action TV

The first season of 3-2-1 Contact aired in 1980, but due to funding constraints, the series went into reruns until 1983.
All Creatures Great and Small went on one of these from 1982 to 1988, with two Christmas Episodes in between.
'Allo 'Allo! went on a two-year hiatus from 1989 after lead actor Gorden Kaye suffered a horrific head injury, putting the entire future of the series in doubt. He went on to make a full recovery and the show successfully returned for 3 more series.
Are You Being Served? took a break in 1980 for John Inman to fly to Australia and film a Transatlantic Equivalent.
Atlanta had a four-year hiatus between the end of its second season in 2018 and the scheduled release of the third in 2022. The main reasons were that Donald Glover's music career exploding after he released Awaken, My Love! and that the rest of the main cast (Brian Tyree Henry, Lakeith Stanfield, and Zazie Beetz) had performed well enough that the show had become a Star-Making Role for all three. The COVID pandemic did not help, pushing the release into 2022.
Doctor Who:
- After the transmission of Season 22 in early 1985, the show was rested for 18 months on the orders of BBC One controller Michael Grade. The stated reasons were that the levels of violence in the programme had become to high, and the BBC wished to invest money in creating new dramas. The show returned in late 1986, but with a completely different set of stories to those that had been originally planned, under the umbrella title "Trial Of A Time Lord", reflecting the way that the show was effectively on trial in real life.
- After the transmission of Season 26 in 1989, which received record-low ratings, it was announced that a 27th season would not be commissioned for the following year. The BBC would insist for the next 14 years that the show had not been cancelled, but they were simply waiting for the right time to bring it back. Aside from a one-off TV movie in 1996, Doctor Who would not return until 2005.
- Having aired one season per year for the first four years of the revival from 2005-08, the show took a year off in 2009 with only a handful of specials airing. This was in part to allow for a smoother transition to the new production team, as Russell T Davies departed and Steven Moffat succeeded him. Series 5 was broadcast in Spring 2010, a full two years after the previous regular season.
- No full season aired in 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2023, barring specials. Meanwhile, the only episode scheduled for 2026 was the Christmas Special.
Gabby Duran & the Unsittables had a second season announcement before the series premiered, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic impacting many television productions, it did not air until 15 months after the first season finale (from March 2020 to June 2021), with the show being cancelled shortly after the Season 2 finale aired.
Game of Thrones: After having a yearly spring-to-summer airing schedule for the first six seasons, the series' seventh season had a delayed premiere in summer, while the eighth and final season, although airing in spring, was delayed by a full year (2019 instead of 2018). Winter is coming not only in-universe but also out; the first six seasons ended their filming in December, but the last two were shot over an entire winter each, so the editing team only started to work in spring.
The Jeopardy National College Championship, a Spin-Off of the game show Jeopardy!, hasn't been aired since its inaugural first season in February 2022, with no word on whether it had been renewed for a second season as of March 2025, meaning that the show has been like this for three years and counting.
Kamen Rider as a TV show went on hiatus during the The '90s, from Kamen Rider BLACK RX (1988-1989) to Kamen Rider Kuuga (2000). The franchise was otherwise kept alive via stage shows, music CDs and the occasional movie. During that time, Metal Heroes became the companion series to Super Sentai.
Lovejoy is an unusual example in that it went on a five-year hiatus after its first series, which aired in 1986, ended before it finally resumed in its second series in 1991, with the show running regularly afterwards until it ended in 1994.
The Mandalorian didn't film any new episodes from March 2020-September 2021, due to production on other Star Wars TV shows. This resulted in a gap of over two years between the airings of the Season 2 finale, in December 2020, and the Season 3 premiere, in March 2023. In the meantime, Mandalorian cast members would at least reprise their roles on Star Wars: The Bad Batch and The Book of Boba Fett.
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood went on a three-year hiatus starting from 1976 and lasting through 1979, mainly so Fred Rogers could work some other projects. The show remained on the air during that period, but only repeats were shown (plus a one-off Christmas Special).
Perfect Strangers went on a 15-month hiatus after ratings dropped following a disastrous move from its prized TGiF slot to Saturday nights in 1992. The series returned for a six-episode Finale Season, which aired on TGiF in the summer of 1993.
Red Dwarf:
- A four-year hiatus (1993-1997) occurred between Seasons 6 and 7, owing to multiple factors: most notably the split between creators Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.
- A second hiatus happened between Season 8 (1999) and Red Dwarf: Back to Earth, thanks to Troubled Production of the Red Dwarf movie that never materialised.
- Season X aired in 2012, and XI and XII aired in 2016 and 2017. 2020's Red Dwarf: The Promised Land is currently the last we've seen of the Dwarfers, though there were indeed plans for further specials until UKTV ceased commissioning.
Son of Svengoolie joked about this in his 1986 finale during a song aptly titled "Cancelled!", proclaiming during a Hurricane of Euphemisms that the show was "On hiatus! That means gone!" Ironically, contrary to the point of the song, the cancellation would turn out to be only temporary, and the show returned (as simply Svengoolie) in 1995.
The 2015 reboot of Teletubbies went on a four-year hiatus before a continuation that utilized many of the same elements of that incarnation was announced for Netflix.
The producers of Thank God You're Here took a break for a year before bringing the show back for a fourth season.
Torchwood did this this between Children of Earth (2009) and Miracle Day (2011), because the producers needed to find an American network to take on the show in conjunction with the BBC.

Music

Title Fight have not released new music since their 2015 album Hyperview, and in 2018 they stopped performing live. Though they never officially broken up, any chance of a new album or even a reunion tour is looking more and more unlikely as the band members have gone their separate ways and onto other projects.

Podcasts

In July 2016, Sick Sad World announced a hiatus due to the hosts' busy personal and professional lives. They intended to return in the fall, but that ended up not happening.

Theme Parks

Universal Studios Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights has gone through this a total of four times. It first started in 1986, but after an incident that resulted in the death of a scareactor, it was cancelled until 1992. After 1992, it again went dark until 1997 and continued to run for 1998, 1999, and 2000 before once more going on hiatus. In 2006, the event was at last revived and has been run every year until 2020. As a result of COVID-19 affecting theme parks on a global scale, Universal had to cancel the Horror Nights once again.

Video Games

After Kid Icarus went into years of silence, its main protagonist Pit ended up being announced as a playable character for Super Smash Bros. Brawl, serving as that entry's "throwback/retro" character. This laid the groundwork for Smash Bros. creator Masahiro Sakurai himself to develop the first new entry in two decades, Kid Icarus: Uprising. The game released to moderately positive reception, leading many to assume the series would continue on with regular installments, but this wouldn't be the case. Sakurai would state years later that he finds the idea of making a new entry difficult 👁 Image
, which inadvertently makes Uprising's tongue-in-cheek joke about the series not getting another game for 20 years a bit bittersweet.
The developers of Melody and Dating My Daughter took a couple of these for a month each to cool down while alternating between these two games.
Professor Layton would not see a new title release for some time after Layton's Mystery Journey: Katrielle and the Millionaires' Conspiracy, which was first released in 2017. This hiatus wouldn't end until Professor Layton and The New World of Steam was announced in 2023, later releasing in 2025.
In a Nintendo Life interview 👁 Image
with producer Kensuke Tsukanaka about Project × Zone 2: Brave New World, he expressed interest in continuing the Project × Zone series. In spite of this, no new entries for the series have been announced since Brave New World first released in Japan back in 2015.
Insomniac Games placed the Ratchet & Clank series on hiatus from 2016 to 2021 so they could work on Spider-Man (PS4). The series made its triumphant return with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
The Sly Cooper series went on hiatus after 2005's Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves, until a fourth game, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, released in 2013. Unfortunately, that title ended on a cliffhanger that is unlikely to be followed up on — original developer Sucker Punch would move on to other projects such as Ghost of Tsushima while Sanzaru Games, despite their interest in making a Sly 5 (or at least getting to continue the fourth game's story via DLC), was never given the chance and later bought out by Oculus Studios in 2020 before being closed down in 2026 — and the series has been on hiatus again ever since.
The WWE 2K series, which typically releases games annually, went on a brief hiatus, not releasing a game in either 2020 (aside from the spinoff title 2K Battlegrounds) or 2021, with the series not releasing another mainline game until 2022. The hiatus is believed to be due to both the poor reception of 2K20 and the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Web Animation

Camp Camp is hung up as Rooster Teeth went through a restructuring that prevented the show from being made without an outside studio's help. (There's also another 2D show, Nomad of Nowhere, though most consider it Quietly Cancelled instead of this trope.)
Happy Tree Friends has had a history of hiatuses. The first complete hiatus started in late 2005, ended when the TV series premiered in September 2006 on G4TV, and resumed in December 2006 after the TV series ended, finally ending in October 2007. Then it underwent another major hiatus from October 2010 to December 2011, and yet another one from March 2014 to December 2016. After 2016's episodes were released for free by 2019, no new updates have occurred since, leading some to believe that the show was cancelled. Seven years later, the show would finally return in September 2023 with a new episode to promote a crossover DLC with The Crackpet Show.
Homestar Runner has been known to have long gaps in between updates, especially when The Brothers Chaps were working on the video game. Notably, the series was on a complete hiatus from December 22, 2010 to April 1st, 2014, after which scarce updates have taken place.
Imagination Station was put on an indefinite hiatus in February 2026. While the creator, MiniPlush12, stated that the series wouldn't be cancelled, it wouldn't be seeing progress in the near future either. MiniPlush12 notes that the five reasons for this hiatus were that 1) Imagination Station was an ambitious project, being a Smash Bros.''-style fighting game on Scratch; 2) the creator slowly losing interest in the project; 3) the creator procrastinating on the project; 4) school taking more time away from the series; and 5) the creator just not knowing what to do with it at that point.
After the second season of Meta Runner concluded in December 2020, the series went on an extended break in 2021. While work was being done on the third and final season, Glitch Productions also worked on two other projects, namely the SMG4 spin-off Sunset Paradise and the pilot for Murder Drones, which premiered in 2021 instead. After those, Meta Runner would return for its last episodes in July 2022, after a 19-month gap.
Minilife TV: The Minilife Chronicles series was originally planned to go on a brief hiatus from September 2019 to January 2020, but the COVID-19 Pandemic delayed the next episode to November 2021.
RWBY: The show took an extended break after Volume 8 due to COVID-19 causing production issues, and as a result of needing to work on both Volume 9 and a Justice League crossover film for Warner Bros. that was released in two parts. Thus, there was no season premiere in either 2021 or 2022, but the anime spin-off RWBY: Ice Queendom began airing in June 2022. Then, after Volume 9's completion in 2023, an avalanche of outside problems put the franchise on hold. Funding problems throughout the remainder of the year meant Volume 10 never started production, and Rooster Teeth then went bankrupt and shut down in May 2024, leaving the April 2024 RWBY Volume 9 Beyond mini-series as the last bit of media produced for the series. Thankfully, the IP rights for RWBY were then sold to VIZ Media in July 2024, who confirmed plans for more volumes for the series. However, in mid-2025, Kerry Shawcross confirmed that Vol. 10's production is still in the early writing phase, meaning it would be a while longer before any new content would be released.
The SilvaGunner Christmas Comeback Crisis allowed four months to elapse between the uploads of Episode 6 and Episode 7, and Chaze the Chat broke character to apologize for the production delay 👁 Image
. However, this turned out to be nothing in comparison to the six-year hiatus that followed the December 25, 2017 premiere of its 10th episode. Various tie-in lore videos were uploaded during this period, some of them falling blatantly outside canon. The series made its grand return (Grand Dad included) on January 12, 2024, at the end of the channel's Season 7.
Super Mario Bros. Z was put on an indefinite hiatus due to an unspecified real-life problem up until its cancellation in 2012.

Webcomics

The Blackblood Alliance originally began in 2005 (with its beginning pages being revamped in 2007), then became dormant from 2009 onwards. It was later rebooted completely with a new story in 2016 and received steady updates for a while, but went on an extended hiatus in 2019 because of Kay Fedewa's health issues.
Brawl in the Family went on a brief hiatus shortly before the 400th comic due to Matthew Taranto's health problems. A second one was announced immediately after the Christmas comic, lasting a little over a month.
The author of Casey and Andy announced that he was planning to leave the comic alone for an indefinite amount of time while he worked on his other project, Cheshire Crossing. He did later return and finish it.
The author of Collar 6 took a one-week hiatus after he completed the 100th strip.
Maritza Campos of College Roomies from Hell!!! takes off the first two and last two weeks of each year (though she had to start the hiatus in 2006 several weeks earlier due to health issues). She also took several weeks off after the birth of her first child.
Cucumber Quest went on an extended hiatus in 2019 due to circumstances in author Gigi DG's personal life making it infeasible to continue the series in is current form. In the hiatus's announcement, Gigi stated that the comic would switch formats to a less taxing illustrated script once they resume work on it.
Dum Cat, a, independent wordless single-paneled anthology, has been put on hold for a confirmed several months. This is so that artist D can put into works a feature-length Dum Cat picture book, with the intention of publication under an established producer.
Earthsong has gone on a number of hiatuses in the past. The author getting married and going on honeymoon caused one of them.
Eidolic Fringe 👁 Image
was a Sci Fi webcomic by Laura Galiffe and Joe Lee that began in 2002. However, in 2005, due to both author and artist suffering from burnout and their Real Life day jobs taking more of their time, they stopped updating the comic before the story could really heat up.
Josh Sortelli of Elf Only Inn has taken lengthy breaks from production of his webcomic, up to several years on one occasion.
El Goonish Shive:
- Dan Shive took two months off at the end of 2006 to catch up on his Strip Buffer and attend to personal issues. He then took several more on a regular basis due to deciding he didn't like his buffer anymore and redoing it.
- At one point, it took him four-and-a-half years to update EGS:NP (18 February 2010 👁 Image
  to 1 August 2014 👁 Image
  ).
  Dan's Commentary: Contrary to what's stated above and below, EGS:NP was on an indefinite hiatus.
Xin, who draws Erfworld, took time off in November 2011 to deal with her dying mother. During this time, the text only "Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower)" was posted instead, which was set before the events of the main comic.
The webcomic Eversummer Eve has a long and tortured history online. It had been running for several years before Denise Jones moved new updates and its archive to subscription-site WirePop, where it helped launch the site. The comic eventually hit Schedule Slip in 2007 without notice, quietly leaving the site in early 2008. The comic has not been updated since, and the author has since indicated on DeviantArt that it's on hiatus, but she intends to come back to it and remake/reboot it at some undetermined point in time.
Exterminatus Now has been on an indefinite hiatus since April 2015, although there were some random updates in 2016.
Flaky Pastry: After receiving (more or less) weekly updates since 2005, the comic went into hiatus at the very end of 2022. It eventually returned in 2025, although in a single-panel gag-per-day format rather than storylines.
Fluffy Bunny Domination has not been updated since 2013 at the latest.
The Fuzzy Five announced a hiatus in August 2012. As of June 2014, there has been no indication of a return date.
When Chapter 14 of Gunnerkrigg Court finished in September 2007, the series went on a hiatus In Name Only. The regular comic didn't update for two weeks, but bonus material, including a few Guest Strips, were posted every weekday (whereas the regular comic only updates three times a week). Tom Siddell explained that the break was supposed to represent the protagonists' summer holiday, so the time skip between Chapters 14 and 15 wouldn't feel so abrupt.
Hello Cthulhu, thought to be an orphan, was updated a whopping year-and-a-half after the 85th strip.
Amahara from The Idaten Deities Know Only Peace hasn't updated his webcomic version in years, to the point some people wondered if he'd just focus on moving on with the storyline in the actual official manga version he writes (with COOL handling art duties).
Irregular Webcomic! went on a puppy hiatus on June 11, 2018, due to David Morgan Mar getting a poodle puppy and wanting to devote his time to raising it. It was planned to return on New Year's Day in 2019.
Jayden and Crusader 👁 Image
experienced a hiatus between January and May 2008 in an effort to improve artistic ability before continuing.
Mike Shapiro, author of Joe The Circle 👁 Image
, mysteriously ceased his already-sporadic updates on his comic in July 2002. To the frank astonishment of both his readers and his characters, he unexpectedly resumed updates 👁 Image
... in September 2006. Thus, at four years and two months, Mike has one of the longest non-permanent hiatuses of a webcomic. And, unfortunately, he stopped again shortly afterward.
Keychain of Creation was forced onto hiatus after 383 strips due to the artist getting tendonitis. Due to the chronic nature of the aliment, the hiatus may become permanent.
Mary Cagle, author of Kiwi Blitz, announced in mid-2020 that the comic would be taking an indefinite hiatus 👁 Image
, in order to balance taking care of personal issues and working as lead writer and artist on Sleepless Domain. As the comic had been ongoing for over a decade by then and soon entered its penultimate chapter, the main story is effectively complete, save a few loose ends waiting to be tied up. Still, the author has repeatedly made it clear that she intends to wrap up the story properly once she has the time to resume regular updates.
A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible stopped updating in May 2006 and returned in December 2012. That's six years and seven months!
The Life of Nob T. Mouse went on hiatus for eight years, but has since been running along nicely and now updates three times a week.
Christopher Livingston, author of Livin' in Oblivion 👁 Image
, started a hiatus titled, startlingly, "Hiatus". Two months later, an update, then nothing. He still sporadically updates, but with no schedule.
Living With Insanity 👁 Image
took one while David was on vacation with no internet access and Paul was doing some work for Oni Press. Other than that, no major problems.
Loserz went on hiatus several times, for durations of two to four months, mostly in winter. On the other hand, when it was alive, it often updated daily.
Mage & Demon Queen: At the end of Season 1, the author took a break from May 21st, 2019 until August 29th, 2019. After finishing Season 2 on January 13th, 2021, they took another hiatus that lasted until June 23rd of the same year.
MegaTokyo actually does do this on occasion, but due to Fred Gallagher's notorious Schedule Slip, it's hard to tell the difference.
Melonpool ended up getting a couple large breaks, with many of them flat out abandoning the material that it went on hiatus with.
MS Paint Adventures has undergone a few hiatuses in the past as creator Andrew Hussie has worked on sizable projects related to the comic. In the later years, they even got their own names. Those include:
- A relatively unknown hiatus between Bard Quest and Problem Sleuth, lasting from July 2007 to March 2008. Back then, MSPA wasn't Andrew’s main thing (that title went to Team Special Olympics), and in addition, most of its details still weren't ironed out, causing the pause (and the discontinuing of Bard Quest).
- A hiatus in September to October 2011 to work on Homestuck's 13-minute long animated update, Cascade.
- An unnamed hiatus from August to September 2012; famous for starting the trend of Homestuck fans making weird sprite edits during the pauses. It concluded with the first of three large-scale walkarounds featuring the Beforus trolls.
- The Megapause, the first "named" pause of Homestuck, lasting from April to June 2013. It concluded with Caliborn revealing "HOMOSUCK.", an Affectionate Parody of the webcomic it's in. In its time, it caused confusion; as the second-to-last page before it read "THE END.", some people assumed it to be the actual end of Homestuck.
- The Gigapause, the longest pause by far, lasting an entire year from October 2013 to October 2014; Hussie originally intended to finish the entire comic in this time before posting the ending all at once, but he ended up not getting as much work done as he expected, so he ended the hiatus prematurely and just returned to regular updates.
- The Masterpause, from January to April 2015; it is named for having concluded with "Caliborn's Masterpiece".
- The Omegapause, the last pause before Homestuck's completion, from July 2015 to March 2016. This time, we were brought an 18-minute-long Collide.
- If we consider each webcomic to be its own thing, though, the longest hiatus is that of Jailbreak. Abandoned in February 2007, it was unfinished until September 2011, when the ending was written.
- Then there's the Paradox Space hiatus, starting April 2015, initiated because that comic was costing way too much and not generating any significant revenue.
Mountain Time took a hiatus that was later "explained" in a special travelogue feature 👁 Image
.
The Order of the Stick:
- Due to his chronic illness, Rich Burlew took a few weeks' break from the comic, once he reached the end of the "War and XPs" story arc 👁 Image
  . A brief hiatus is typical at the end of a story arc, but this one was longer than usual.
- Another hiatus ensued in mid to late 2012 due to an injury sustained to his drawing hand.
Ow, my sanity has been on indefinite hiatus since 2011, so that the author can focus on projects, such as Ten-Ghost, that will actually allow him to buy food.
Phuzzy Comics has been on hiatus since January 2016 as the author's responsibilities as storyboard artist/voice actor filled her time.
The Prime of Ambition stopped in the middle of the most interesting part of a flashback in the very beginning. After June 11th, 2008 the authors occasionally dropped in bonus materials, sketchbook pages, and teasers, until the #bpspill page on July 4th, 2010 and the Christmas Episode. A to-do list promising reanimation of the comic in the first days of October appeared on September 16th, 2011. This didn't materialize, but at least the to-do list received regular updates.
Sailor Sun was placed on hiatus due to the author moving to the Middle East for job reasons; the comic now sits at the vague statements of intent on the Dead Fic scale. However, his other, shorter comic I Dream of a Jeanie Bottle continued to randomly cough up updates.
Sakana went on an extended hiatus that lasted from October of 2019 to September of 2023 as the creator became busy with other projects. When the comic returned, the entire site had also been redesigned.
Sidequest Story went into what was supposed to be a brief one-month hiatus, but which ended up lasting almost a year. Luckily, it got back to updating weekly again after that... only to slip back into hiatus again a few months later. As of May 6th, 2014, the comic has been in hiatus for 1½ year.
Skeletons!👁 Image
did this after a Schedule Slip, but at least there's a strip that points out why.
Pete Abrams of Sluggy Freelance is known to go on at least one major hiatus a year. The longest occurred shortly after the birth of his daughter and lasted over two months, during which time a number of other artists (including some mentioned in this very entry) drew filler strips for the site.
Sugar Bits has not received any updates since 2016. Members of Bleedman's production team say the decision has been made to cancel Sugar Bits as a comic in order to maintain a constant focus on PPGD.
Tove was last updated on October 4, 2019, and has not been updated since, likely making it an Orphaned Series.
Unsounded. As the author put it between Chapter 5 and 6:
Long time readers know I take a one month break between chapters to recharge my batteries and fluff the page buffer, allowing me to keep the awesome three updates a week schedule. It's for the best
Wayfarers Moon in an unusual subversion: The announcement for the hiatus included an announcement for an extra Spin-Off comic once they would start up again.
Anne Onymous of The Wotch took off the first six weeks of 2007 to recover from a serious personal problem. Another long hiatus began in August 2009. The series eventually resumed with a new artist taking over the drawing duties.

Web Original

While often prone to Schedule Slip, the Goosebumps blog Blogger Beware was announced by the blog owner to be on indefinite hiatus since 2013, with only one update in 2015 to poke fun at the then upcoming 2015 movie and none since then.
Fortnite The Movie features an insane amount of hiatuses, some ranging from a few weeks to almost two whole years.
- Fortnite the Movie, Fortnite the Movie 2 and Fortnite the Movie 3 Part 1 all were released in the span of a week. Fortnite the Movie 3 Part 2 would be released roughly two and a half weeks later.
- Fortnite the Movie 4 would release mid December of 2019. In the next two and a half weeks, we would see the release of The Spyman, Fortnite the Movie 5: Vengeance, Fortnite the Movie 6 and Prequel.
- Over two months later, Mime Time and Knives Out 2 were released back to back over two days. Almost three weeks after this, Fortnite the Movie 7: Rise of the Clown and Old Times would release in a similar way to the previous duo. One month after Old Times was released, Bigmouth, Jesus! and The Clown would all release on the same day
- One year and eight months after the release of The Clown, The Fortnie the Movie Remake would be released. Fortnite the Movie 8: The Enemy of the Clown, The Roadtrip and Granny Business would all be released in the span of a week after this. This would be the longest hiatus to this date.
- Eight months after Granny Business, we would see the release of The Cowboy Contract, Norm's Night of Horror, Cop Movie and Ab-Norm-al in the span of a few days.
- Three months later, The Fortnite the Movie Holiday Special would be released, along with Hunted, The Wreckage and The Gustavo Show.
- Goliath and Jesus vs Rampage: Yawn of Justice would be released two months after this in the span of a few days.
- Another month after the previous two films were released, Last of the Clowns would be released.
Nobody Here:
- After "Hermit 👁 Image
  " was uploaded in 2006, the site didn't get another update until 2010. "Trash 👁 Image
  ", which looks back on the site's history as part of its 25th anniversary, refers to this period as "the darkness."
- "Plant 👁 Image
  ", uploaded in 2018, was the site's last update for years until the site started regularly updating again in 2023; this lack of updates was in part due to the need to re-code the site's outdated Flash content.

Web Video

BirgirPall, a comedic, video game-playing duo from Iceland went on a permanent hiatus in January 2018 when one half the duo left Iceland to work for a game development studio located in California in the United States while the other half joined the creators of EVE Online in Iceland. The time difference and their full time work obligations narrowed their available collaboration window to a too small amount of time solely on weekends, which wasn't enough time to continue their work together.
Channel 10 - Manila: The channel went on hiatus after its last video was uploaded on December 28, 2023, with no additional content posted since.
A Couple of C*nts in the Countryside released no videos between September 2012 and May 2014, due to various Real Life incidents.
Critical Role suspended all live broadcasting on March 17, 2020 due to quarantine restrictions brought on by the COVID-19 Pandemic. The main series returned on July 2nd, which was coincidentally the 100th episode of Campaign 2, but episodes were now pre-recorded and the set was rearranged to allow the cast to maintain a safe distance from each other.
Dice, Camera, Action! was put on hiatus in May 2019, after controversy arose due to an affair between cast members and further controversial behavior of one of its stars. It was cancelled seven months later.
Economy Watch goes through these from time to time, especially during the spring.
Epic Rap Battles of History:
- After years of more-or-less consistent uploads, the show went on hiatus after the fifth season ended in January 2017, because of burnout the cast and crew were facing and because co-creator NicePeter had just become a father and needed to be with his family. The show wouldn't be picked back up until a special bonus episode was released 23 months later along with the announcement that a sixth season would officially premiere four months after that.
- Halfway into Season 6, the onset of the coronavirus pandemic forced NicePeter and EpicLloyd to shelve most of their ideas and cut the season short; as a result, only two episodes were made that year, the first of which debuting 10 months after the last episode of 2019.
- By the time Season 7 premiered in June 2021, lengthy hiatuses became the norm rather than the exception: a five-month gap between the first two episodes of the season, a 10-month gap between third and fourth, 14 months between fourth and fifth, two months between fifth and sixth, eight months between sixth and seventh, four months between seventh and eighth, and 10 months between eighth and ninth.
James & Mike Mondays, which managed to keep up a streak of uploading videos every Monday for roughly seven years, announced that the show would be going on hiatus in July of 2020. The hiatus announcement was tied to their playthrough of The Wizard of Oz (1993), with the intent of resuming the series in February of 2021. However, due to a variety of factors including Mike Matei's departure from Cinemassacre, the decision was eventually made to just cancel the series.
Nintendo Direct:
Nintendo's bimonthly Direct video presentations skipped over August and October 2015 due to the death of president and CEO Satoru Iwata. They resumed in November of that year.
- Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Nintendo did not have a Direct between September 2019 and February 2021. While there was one Mini Direct and many third-party Partner Showcases, all new first party announcements were relegated to individual social media posts.
Sam & Mickey took several breaks in 2022, only posting new episodes in January, March, and July. The post-July break continued until the May 2023 release of "The Unexpected Hiatus", explained in-universe as Barbie joining a cult for nine months. They also haven't posted any miniseries since November 2021.
That Dude in the Suede left Channel Awesome for a two-year hiatus in January 2009 in order to do missionary work. His return was pushed back to May, and when he still failed to return to the site rumors sprang up that he was doubting coming back at all — and even confirmed them. In reality, his delayed return was tied to delays in TGWTG's third anniversary special. On June 30th, at the end of Suburban Knights part five, Suede revealed himself shocking everyone who believed the rumors thus pulling off a long-term prank. On July 8, Suede released a trailer announcing he would be making more video reviews for TGWTG.
The Yogscast Minecraft Series has a case of this with Shadow of Israphel. When the series seemed to abruptly stop putting out new episodes in the middle of season three, there were/was/is lots of speculation that it had become an Orphaned Series. Lewis Brindley has said that it simply can't be continued at the moment because of real life constraints and some of the original crew not being around anymore (not that it stopped complaining about SOI's hiatus or speculation he was lying, contributing to Artist Disillusionment). Every once in awhile they throw in a Shout-Out in some of their other series alluding to/joking about SOI taking so long/being constantly delayed.
Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series had a gap of two years between Episode 82 (end of Season 4) and Episode 83 (start of Season 5), and then a year and a half until Episode 84, due to ongoing health issues for LittleKuriboh.

Western Animation

The Amazing World of Gumball: Especially mid-Season 2 onwards, this show has been known to release several episodes at a time, only to disappear for months, rarely informing when the next set of episodes will be. Ironically, the airing of Seasons 3-6's finales and first episodes are very close to each other, even overlapping at times.
Arthur had a year-long hiatus between Season 3 (1998) and Season 4 (1999). The reason for the delay is often thought to be that Season 3 pushed the episode count to 65, and that Cinar was gauging the popularity of the series to see if it was worth following up with another season or if the show should be relegated to 65-Episode Cartoon status.
Amphibia:
- The series went into a year-long hiatus following the Season 1 finale, due to Disney Channel's new "binge-watching" strategy where the crew has to finish producing about ten episodes instead of one to three at a time, and release them all at once. It status was left further unknown with the advent of the coronavirus pandemic. Finally, in late June, it was confirmed that the second season would premiere on July 11, 2020, a week away from exactly when the first season finale aired.
- In addition to another hiatus after the first half of Season 2, the first half ended on a huge cliffhanger, as did the other members of Disney Channel's "Big 3" (Big City Greens and The Owl House), aside from a Breather Episode that's Halloween-themed, until March 6, 2021, with the hiatus lasting five months this time (six if one doesn't count the Halloween episode).
Big City Greens fell into this territory following the Season 1 finale in 2019, with no episodes released from March to November when the second season premiered. It went on another hiatus in 2020 after the tenth episode from February to July, then a third hiatus as of "Chipwrecked" in September, with the continuation "Chipocalypse Now" premiering in January of 2021. To make matters worse, 2019 and 2020 currently tie for the fewest episode premieres with 15 each.
DuckTales (2017) really follows this trope. The only notable hiatus in Season 1 was after the Christmas episode on December 2, 2017 and new episodes on May 4, 2018, totaling five months. This was due to moving from Disney XD to Disney Channel. Season 2 saw three hiatuses, one from the Christmas episode on December 1, 2018 to Della's episode in March 2019 (three months), another two-month hiatus due to nine episodes airing in May, and then a four-month hiatus, with new episodes returning in September.
Adventure Time: Fionna and Cake was renewed for a second season a few months after the end of Season 1. However, its release wouldn’t see the light of the day until two years later, in 2025. It should be noted that during the production of Season 2, the crew at Cartoon Network Studios moved into their new headquarters located in the Warner Bros. Second Century development building, thus slowing down the production process a bit.
The Ghost and Molly McGee went on hiatus after airing the first half of its inaugural season following its premiere from November 2021 to February 2022, before resuming to air the first half of its second half and subsequently having another hiatus from March to June of the same year before concluding Season 1. The second season would not debut until April 2023 after the Season 1 finale aired in July of the previous year. It entered hiatus by mid-May, before resuming in early-July, and again taking a break in mid-August.
Gravity Falls went on hiatus after Season 1 ended on August 2, 2013, and lasted for nearly a year until Season 2 premiered on August 1, 2014.
Grojband went on a mid-season hiatus in both the U.S. and Canada (for the former it happened after CN ran out of episodes after "Six Strings of Evil" aired in June 2013) and it was possibly even longer thanks to Uncle Grandpa airing.
Green Eggs and Ham (2019) aired its first season in November 2019, and was subsequently renewed for a second season, which was released in April 2022. It's been said that this show is one of the most expensive western cartoons, so that might explain it.
In addition to the year-long hiatus between Seasons 4 and 5, the second half of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic's fifth season was pushed back to September 2015, after My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Friendship Games aired on Discovery Family. This was also apparently to match the two holiday episodes (Scare Master and Hearthbreakers) with their real-world counterpart's dates, although Hearthbreakers still ended up airing about two months early. Season 6 has a similar summer hiatus, and the ninthepisode, allegedly titled "The Fault in Our Cutie Marks", was delayed until afterwards, leaving only 12 pre-hiatus episodes rather than the symmetrical 13.
Hilda: With Season 2 premiering December 14th, 2020, the hiatus between the first season and the second season took over two years. This proved to be enraging for some fans. The final season had a December 2023 release, making the hiatus an even longer three years in the meantime, not withstanding the 2021 movie special.
The Season 1 finale of Mao Mao: Heroes of Pure Heart aired in July 2020 and the show was renewed for a second season that same month. As of 2025, Season 2 still hasn't been released yet (if it wasn't Quietly Cancelled), making for a five-year (and counting) hiatus. It's possible that COVID-19 and the still-present effects of the AT&T-Time Warner merger affected it.
Max and Ruby aired new episodes throughout a period from 2002-2019 but to date has only had seven official seasons. After the second season, there was a gap of nearly three years until the third, then after the fifth season, there was a gap of over three years until the sixth, which brought about a major Retool to the series.
Nella the Princess Knight: After "Freezing Out the Fleagles" and "The Big Concert" aired on the Nick Jr. channel on December 8, 2019, the show was then put on hiatus and was eventually pulled out of the Nick Jr channel. The last three episodes arrived on Paramount+ on July 21, 2021 when the show was added to Paramount+. It was on hiatus for longer than 12 months — without any news about its future — which was at this point downplayed.
The Owl House:
- The series entered a four month hiatus after the tenth episode in March 2020, with no new ones until July. This is because of Disney Channel's new "binge-watching" strategy where the crew has to finish producing about ten episodes instead of one or two at a time before airing them, which could take 3-5 months or longer.
- The show would go into another major one following the Season 1 finale on August 29th, 2020 lasting nearly ten months, with the reason for such a long hiatus being due to the COVID-19 pandemic forcing the crew to work from home, which made it take longer to churn out new episodes, as well as the fact that the cut of Season 3 forced the crew to rework the entire season, condensing what planned plot points they could into Season 2.
The second season of Producing Parker aired almost two years after the first season ended.
Steven Universe: The show's broadcast schedule became rather erratic 👁 Image
following the first half of season one, when the series forwent the classic weekly format for the bomb format (aptly titled "Stevenbomb"). This erratic schedule only amplified once the fifth season started, to compensate for a production hiatus after the season's completion leading into Steven Universe: The Movie and Steven Universe: Future — there was a five-month hiatus twice before it ended. Needless to say, this erratic schedule became quite... notorious amongst the fandom.
Ready Jet Go! constantly suffers from this. By far the longest hiatus was the one from December 30, 2016^notethe day after "Space Junk / Scientific Sean" premiered to June 4, 2017^noteone day before "Beep and Boop's Game / Constellation Prize" premiered, a total of gfive months.
South Park entered a strange legal argument in 2020-2021, where new episodes would air on Comedy Central and go on HBO Max, but "special events" would go on Paramount+. With HBO feeling cheated out of content, they sued South Park Digital Studios. After a few specials that went into the process of producing these specials and the frustration behind it, Parker and Stone announced in 2024 that the series would go on hiatus until the streaming situation was sorted out, as well as the results of the U.S. election.
Stōked was hit with this in both the United States and Canada.
- Canada: While the show did pretty decent on Teletoon when it first premiered, the series took a four-month hiatus between "Mr. Wahine" (which aired November 5, 2009) and "Reef, Broseph and Emma's Totally Stupid Adventure" (which aired March 4, 2010). Season 2 was hit with it even worse. Despite airing new episodes every other week, the series saw an even longer hiatus between "Clinging in the Rain" (which premiered on January 6, 2011) to "My Fair Leslie" (which premiered on April 6, 2012). The series saw another hiatus, which lasted five months. Since "Browatch" (which aired on September 22, 2012) the series went back to airing new episodes every other week, even leading to the Grand Finale "Grom Fest" (which aired January 26, 2013). In short, it took Canada — the show's country of origin — almost 2 1/2 years to finish Season 2.
- United States: Aside from airing the first 17 episodes out of order, the show did pretty decent when it initially aired in July 2009. However, after "Mr. Wahine" (which premiered on November 10, 2009), the series took a seven-month hiatus until "Grand Theft Auto Bus" (which premiered June 28, 2010) aired. The United States run ended with "Endless Bummer", which was the 22nd episode of the first season. The seven-month hiatus was the only hiatus that the US version of "Stoked" ever saw, as the series disappeared from Cartoon Network once they removed the show after July 2010.
Tangled: The Series had some pretty long hiatuses at times. The first hiatus was between the Season 1 finale ("Secret of the Sundrop"; January 13, 2018) and the Season 2 premiere ("Beyond the Corona Walls"; June 24, 2018) — five months. After the episode "Happiness Is..." (August 26, 2018), the show went on hiatus again until March 3, 2019 ("Max and Eugene in Peril on the High Seas") — six months. Another 5-6 month hiatus happened between the Season 2 finale ("Destinies Collide"; April 14, 2019) and the Season 3 premiere ("Rapunzel's Return"; October 7, 2019).

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