L E 🏎️ 👯‍♂️💕🎻🎻🏹👸

POV: It's 2016, what anime are you watching?

MAPPA CEO Manabu Otsuka says the studio was at serious risk of going bankrupt in 2012, which is when they started looking into being a bigger part of production committees. Otsuka used Yuri!!! on ICE as an example of how basic investments in production committees wasn't enough. He says that it was a massive hit, but MAPPA was in a position where it received the least profit despite shouldering many of the responsibilities "such as guaranteeing quality, fulfilling delivery obligations, and taking investment risks." He also talked about Chainsaw Man, which MAPPA fully funded. That endeavor exposed MAPPA’s inexperience in rights management. Despite success, Otsuka feared it could create the impression that anime studios struggled to take on projects with 100% sole funding. "I decided to take the lead in rights myself and review the executive structure and the system itself. I felt it was necessary to redesign from the very beginning, focusing not on what we sell, but on what we want to deliver.“ Otsuka also had high praise for the Chainsaw Man manga by Tatsuki Fujimoto, describing it as embodying the reasons why he chose animation as his career.

caps (2026) [2/22]