Tom Cruise and director Alejandro G. Iñárritu visited the "MAPPA EXPO 15th Anniversary" exhibition in Tokyo while in Japan to promote Digger, which opened in Japanese theaters on October 9, 2026, according to Oricon News. The two toured displays including Jujutsu Kaisen and Chainsaw Man and held a creator talk with animator Tadashi Hiramatsu about how films and animation are each made.
On arriving, Cruise said the exhibition was truly wonderful and that he had been looking forward to it, while Iñárritu said his son is a big fan of MAPPA's work. The pair started at the Jujutsu Kaisen area, studying the key animation drawings on display. Cruise singled out the style, the hair and the framing, and Iñárritu added the angle.
Cruise then asked Hiramatsu how much of the work is done by hand, and whether young animators still draw by hand or mostly work digitally. Hiramatsu said he came up as an animator with paper and pencil, and that although younger animators mostly work digitally, he thinks starting on paper is important too. Cruise agreed, saying it feels more like an artist's work, and that the same is true of recording, where the artist's voice remains. Iñárritu asked about points including how many staff members work on a single anime episode.
The creator talk itself was held in the display area for the Chainsaw Man Reze Arc theatrical film, in front of a Chainsaw Man sculpture. Hiramatsu said he had seen Digger twice: he found it not only entertaining but very deep in its detail, so he asked to watch it a second time. He praised the camera work, color, music and sound effects along with Cruise's performance, saying the film left him feeling it was something that could only be seen in a cinema.
Cruise said that watching footage from meticulously built sets on a big screen creates a sense of depth so strong that it looks almost like 3D imagery. Iñárritu said the concepts were all fixed before shooting: the team set up three walls in a studio, shot with the film's own camera and lenses, used that footage like storyboards, and built the lighting from there. He said the music and sound effects took a year to produce, and that real animal cries were used among the sound effects. Nothing was shot outdoors, he added, and the production resembled animation in that every scene and every frame was built the same way.
Asked about playing the protagonist Digger Rockwell, a character unlike his established image, Cruise said he thinks it is the most original film and that he has never seen a character like this in film history, and that he was honored to make it with Iñárritu and to play the role. At the end of the talk, Hiramatsu presented the two with a hand-drawn illustration of Digger Rockwell that he had made after being inspired by the film, captioned "There is TRUTH within a LIE." Cruise asked whether Hiramatsu had drawn it himself and shook his hand firmly. Both men said the message was exactly the film's theme, and Iñárritu said he especially wants younger viewers to see the film and to understand how to look at reality so they are not misled.
The pair also viewed exhibits including a recreation of the Rumbling from Attack on Titan: The Final Season. Asked for a final impression, Cruise answered, "I love it!"