MAPPA's production floor is the latest victim in the ongoing Jujutsu Kaisen and studio scandal.
Animator Sota Shigetsugu (@Hone_honeHONE on X, formerly Twitter) posted a clip on Nov. 16, revealing that the wrecked building in the latest Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, Episode 17 was actually based on MAPPA's own production floor. "This is kind of an inside joke," Shigetsugu said, "but the building being destroyed in this cut actually exists in Shibuya. But, since I couldn't find photos or layouts of the interior, I destroyed MAPPA's production floor for Jujutsu instead, which was just the right size. The staff loved it haha." Among the wreckage, users also identified other Easter eggs from the episodes that referenced MAPPA, including a Chainsaw Man plushie of popular character Pochita.
One of the top replies to Shigetsugu's post came from a fellow Jujutsu Kaisen staff member, Kazuto Arai, who commented, "My desk got blown away." Fans appeared happy to see Arai in seemingly good spirits after the Jujutsu Kaisen episode director's distressing X post from Nov. 15, which featured a character in a graphic manner who many took to mean Arai himself.
Shigetsugu continues his incredible candidness about the conditions at MAPPA in recent times. On Nov. 11, he revealed that the Jujutsu Kaisen 0 movie took only four months to make when a standard 30-minute episode generally takes at least 1 month. Chief animation director of the film, Terumi Nishii, recently extended an invite to the United States acting union SAG-AFTRA to talk some sense into the youth. According to her and voice actor Ayano Fukumiya, the anime industry is "crumbling." However, Nishii says that nothing will change unless Japanese animators come together in a unified movement.
Crunchyroll streams both seasons of Jujutsu Kaisen, which is described as follows: "Yuji Itadori is a boy with tremendous physical strength, though he lives a completely ordinary high school life. One day, to save a classmate who has been attacked by curses, he eats the finger of Ryomen Sukuna, taking the curse into his own soul. From then on, he shares one body with Ryomen Sukuna. Guided by the most powerful of sorcerers, Satoru Gojo, Itadori is admitted to Tokyo Jujutsu High School, an organization that fights the curses... and thus begins the heroic tale of a boy who became a curse to exorcise a curse, a life from which he could never turn back."
Source: X (formerly Twitter)
