Tom Cruise left MAPPA with a number that cuts through the glamour of anime production: one episode of Jujutsu Kaisen takes about 2–3 months to make. During a visit to the studio with Alejandro G. Inarritu, Cruise asked animator Tadashi Hiramatsu how long the work takes, and Hiramatsu gave him the answer in plain terms.
MAPPA shared the visit as part of its 15th-anniversary celebrations, which is why the clip is drawing attention now. The studio gave viewers a look inside a process most fans only see on screen, and it did so with two film names attached to the encounter, which made the behind-the-scenes detail land harder than a routine anniversary post.
Hiramatsu was the person guiding them through the studio, and he had the kind of answer that explains the scale of the task without turning it into a lecture. He said the total comes to about 2–3 months, though the work is a little shorter once animators join in. Before that, storyboards and other preparation have to be finished, and that front-loaded work is what stretches the schedule back out again.
That production rhythm matters because it shows how much of an episode is built before most viewers would think the animation has even started. Hiramatsu said the workflow has become largely digital, but he still works about half and half between paper and pencil and digital tools. For a series that MAPPA produces from Gege Akutami’s manga, that mix of old and new tools helps explain how a modern hit can still depend on the habits of the people making it.
The visit also lands at a moment when Jujutsu Kaisen already has a long runway behind it. The anime has released three seasons so far, with the first premiering in 2020, the second in 2023 and the third in 2026. A fourth season has already been announced, but the schedule for that return has not been set out, which leaves the bigger question less about whether the series continues and more about how MAPPA keeps feeding it into production at that pace.
For viewers, the useful takeaway is not just that Jujutsu Kaisen is popular. It is that every episode sits inside a process measured in months, with a workflow that still depends on preparation before the animation team fully takes over. Cruise may have arrived as a visitor, but he walked out with a clearer sense of the time, labor and sequencing behind one of MAPPA’s best-known series.
