Tom Cruise and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu Visit Mappa 15th Anniversary Exhibit
A Hollywood star and an Oscar-winning director walking a studio exhibition floor during a promotional trip is the kind of crossover that puts MAPPA's anniversary show in front of an audience the event itself would not otherwise reach.
Reporting from 1 source: Anime News Network.
Tom Cruise and director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu visited the MAPPA Expo 15th Anniversary exhibition in Tokyo, according to photos the event posted Friday. Character designer Tadashi Hiramatsu joined them for a roundtable, where Inarritu said his son is a MAPPA fan and Cruise asked about hand-drawn animation. The two came to Japan for the Friday opening of Digger, one week after its U.S., Canada, and U.K. release.
The exhibition's social accounts posted photos of the three together at the Yurakucho Museum, where the event runs from September 16 to December 27, with a Fukuoka leg set for January to March 2027. Cruise asked Hiramatsu how much of anime is drawn by hand; Hiramatsu said he trained on paper and pencil and thinks starting there still matters. Hiramatsu also said he asked to see Digger a second time and gave Cruise and Inarritu an illustration he drew. Cruise and Inarritu were in Japan to promote Digger's Friday opening there.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.