Animation studio MAPPA is holding its 15th-anniversary exhibition, MAPPA EXPO 15TH ANNIVERSARY, at YURAKUCHO MUSEUM in Tokyo's Yurakucho area through December 7. WWDJAPAN has published a behind-the-scenes report on five of the show's areas, written after a walk through the venue with its planner.
The exhibition opened on September 16, 2026, and opening hours are 10:00 to 18:00 JST with last entry at 17:00; it is closed on October 26 and 27, according to an official PR TIMES release. The run is divided into a first period through October 25 and a second period starting October 28. The venue is on the first basement floor of Tokyo International Forum in Chiyoda ward.
The opening area, where photography is not allowed, plays video on a loosely stacked pile of CRT televisions. The clips come from the 23 works featured in the exhibition, and the planner said the CRTs stand for the analog culture of the 1990s that MAPPA's founding members grew up with.
Earlier Works and MAPPA's Origins
The "Various Stories" area covers the 20 works other than Attack on Titan, Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man, among them the early run of the gag anime Teekyu (2012-17), Banana Fish, Kakegurui and the Inazuma Eleven film. Booths range from line art and backgrounds to objects that appear in each work: a letter addressed to Ash Lynx and an airline ticket for Banana Fish, and a Kakegurui character's collection of torn-off fingernails.
The report singles out the booth for In This Corner of the World, because MAPPA was set up by its founder and chairman, Masao Maruyama, to get that film, directed by Sunao Katabuchi, released. The film is known for an unusually long theatrical run. Tsuchiura Central Cinemas in Ibaraki Prefecture began screening it on February 18, 2017, and the extended version, In This Corner (and Other Corners) of the World, played there from December 20, 2019 to November 5, 2021. The exhibition's ambassador is Non, the actor who voiced Suzu in the film.
The exhibition's tagline, 物語のすぐそばへ。(roughly, "right beside the story"), points to the studio's attention to realistic detail, WWDJAPAN notes. For the flowers that appear at the start of the second season opening of Hell's Paradise, MAPPA had a florist make artificial flowers, photographed them, and then applied animation processing to the photos.
The Three Headline Areas
In the Attack on Titan The Final Season area, the lighting drops and sound effects of the Rumbling, the operation central to the story, boom through the space. The planner said the original key animation on show was picked from many scenes as material fans would be glad to see. On the storyboards, the handwritten sound effects are brushed with a force that matches the sharpness of each sound, and the storyboard for the scene where Sasha nearly faints over how good the lobster is was drawn boldly enough to recognize from a distance. The cuts hanging above the display are neither fan favorites nor animators' picks: they are the end cards shown in each TV episode. In the booth recreating the Rumbling, the footstep effects are the ones used in the anime, and the planner said the Titans walking beneath the huge Titan at its center come in about six variations of expression and build.
The Jujutsu Kaisen area groups key animation and storyboards by battle scene. The setting materials repay a close look: for Maki in a baseball uniform in season 1 episode 21, her ponytail sits in a different position depending on whether she wears a cap or a helmet. One booth recreates the strange train car from the season 1 opening, where Yuji Itadori slowly opens his eyes as Eve's "Kaikai Kitan" begins, with a life-size Itadori seated inside as footage plays. The area ends with the room where Gojo was sleeping in the season 2 opening and episode 29, including the chair Kugisaki comments on in the series.
The Chainsaw Man section covers only Chainsaw Man - The Movie: Reze Arc and follows its roughly one-hour-40-minute story. The telephone booth where Denji and Reze meet is dressed with a well-used phone book and a coffee can holding cigarette butts. Storyboards from the cinema date, where Denji's mood lifts as he meets Makima outside the theater, label him "Gyaru Denji" and carry notes the staff wrote to each other. Also on display are the Hayakawa household floor plan that drew attention on social media and the video of Reze dancing to the theme song "IRIS OUT" by Kenshi Yonezu; MAPPA drew 156 illustrations for that roughly 17-second clip, according to the report. The final booth recreates the narrow alley Reze walks down toward the cafe where Denji waits, with a panel of Denji seen from behind and, at its lower left, the bouquet of gerberas he carries in the film.