Maboroshi Trailer Released: Watch

Studio MAPPA has had a busy year. Earlier in 2023, anime fans bore witness to the penultimate episode of Attack on Titan, the arrival of Jujutsu Kaisen’s second season, the conclusion of Thorfinn’s second season in Vinland Saga, and the premiere of Hell’s Paradise, but the studio has a new movie arriving this fall. Maboroshi, aka Alice and Therese’s Illusory Factory, will hit theaters in Japan on September 15th and has released its final trailer to explore this new original story.

MAPPA’s new feature-length film was announced in 2021 and will star Junya Enoki as the lead Masamune Kikuiri, Reina Ueda as Mutsumi Sagami, and Misaki Kuno as Itsumi to round out the main cast. Despite hitting Japanese theaters later this week, the movie has yet to announce if it will be making landfall in North America in the future. Considering MAPPA’s track record, it might only be a matter of time before we see the Illusory Factory hit the West.

MAPPA’s Illusory Factory

The film is straight from the mind of Mari Okada, a creator who has a long and varied history in the anime world. Alongside creating a handful of anime movies, Okada has worked on major franchises such as Mobile Suit Gundam, Rurouni Kenshin, Lupin The Third, and Fate/stay Night to name a few. 

If this is your first time hearing of MAPPA’s next animated movie, here’s how the animation studio describes Maboroshi, “Masamune, 14, lives in a town where time has stopped due to an explosion at a steelworks. In the hopes of going back to normal someday, I made a rule that I couldn’t change anything, and I was living a depressed life. One day, guided by Mutsumi, a mysterious classmate who is curious about him, he steps into the No. 5 blast furnace of a steelworks. There was Gomi, a girl who couldn’t speak and looked like a wild wolf. The encounter with the two girls was the beginning of the world’s imbalance. What kind of future will the unstoppable impulse of love end up in?”

Are you crossing your fingers that MAPPA’s new movie will hit North America in the future? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of the Illusory Factory.