Jujutsu Kaisen Animators Detail Their "Catastrophic" Time With MAPPA

These days, there are few animation studios known as widely as MAPPA. The name has become a household one for shonen lovers given the history MAPPA has with hits like Chainsaw Man and Attack on Titan. Most recently, the team at MAPPA stepped out with Jujutsu Kaisen season two to great success. However, the anime comeback was marred by vocal critiques from animators, and now two industry giants are unpacking their own catastrophic time with MAPPA.

The conversation comes from Konoha TV, a French channel that tracks all things anime and animation. The publication spoke with Vincent Hansard and Dorian Culon about their time with MAPPA on Jujutsu Kaisen. It was there the two animators spoke candidly as Chansard stressed he would never work at MAPPA again.

"I simply don't want to show my support as a worker to a society who, ideologically, simply doesn't care about the work conditions.I don't want to support them, that's all. I did it this time because Hakuyu Go-san asked me personally," Chansard shared.

"I like to work with him! If he asks me personally it's because he really wants to work with me, which made me accept. But he doesn't want to work ever again for Mappa himself so I can tell you, and I am absolutely sure that I won't ever again work for Mappa."

Adding in, Culon said his introduction to MAPPA while working on Jujutsu Kaisen was memorable because of how negative it was. He came on during a crunch period, and the French animator said he was thrust into work that other animators had dropped due to scheduling issues.

"I had horrifying deadlines because of that person who didn't do his work. I had to replace him in the last moments and it was horrible for everyone because, I couldn't do anything, I had to give them some roughs, I wasn't happy about my work," they explained.

"The first experience I had on Jujutsu Kaisen was pretty tense, as for the second one I have some funny anecdotes, some are positive, others are negative... The 44th [episode] was the most simple one let's say, at least for me. I had more time, I was free, I could do pretty much what I wanted. The 44th was a good experience! The 41th was catastrophic. They contacted me after the episode, there was the PV at the end of the episode for the episode we worked on and my name wasn't on it yet."

As you can tell, these two animators had a rough go of things while working on Jujutsu Kaisen season two. Their complaints have been echoed by a number of other animators who shared their frustration with MAPPA and its production scheduling. As anime becomes more and more global, issues plaguing animators are becoming more apparent by the day. Given the quality of work MAPPA produces, fans are hopeful the studio can reassess its schedules to help out its staff. But as for these two artists, well – it doesn't seem like they will be working with MAPPA anytime soon.

What do you think about this Jujutsu Kaisen update? Let us know what you think in the comments below as well as on Twitter and Instagram. You can also hit me up @MeganPetersCB to share your take!