🎬 The answer key is in. MAPPA cracked open its 15th-anniversary vault on June 19, and if you placed a bet with us last week, here's how the card paid out: the favorites cashed, the long shots didn't, and the night's biggest story wasn't even on the board. It had a Netflix logo on it.

The favorites cashed, exactly as billed

Start with the two reveals fans were bracing for. Both landed.

Chainsaw Man delivered the most. The Assassins Arc, the continuation everyone expected after the Reze Arc film became a monster hit, got a second teaser PV showing a wave of assassins closing in on Denji along with new characters. Then MAPPA tossed in something nobody had on their card: a Chainsaw Man smartphone game, with an opening theme by Maximum the Hormone, the band's new track "ALL THE LYNCH!! ALL THE MINCE!!" For a sense of why this property keeps getting pushed, the Reze Arc film drew 7.1 million admissions in Japan, cleared ¥10.8 billion (about $67 million) at home, and has now passed ¥29.78 billion (about $185 million) worldwide after opening in more than 100 countries. (We're using ¥161 to the dollar, the rate on June 19.)

Jujutsu Kaisen hit too, with a wrinkle. We tagged the Culling Game as a strong bet, and it's official, except the series is already a step past where the betting card had it. What got a teaser PV is Season 4, billed as "Culling Game Part 2," because Part 1 already aired as Season 3 back in January. There's also a director change: the assistant director from Part 1 moves up to the lead chair for Part 2. The PV leans hard into the brawls, with Hakari against Kashimo, Maki on a tear, and the whole death-march tone manga readers have been dreading and craving in equal measure.

Ranma gets a date; Attack on Titan gets strange

Ranma 1/2 was a lock; its third season was literally printed on the program. But the reveal came with the detail fans actually wanted: a new trailer and a firm window. Season 3 premieres in October 2026, worldwide on Netflix, with the trailer spotlighting Ryoga Hibiki and his pressure-point Breaking Point technique. Rumiko Takahashi's gender-swapping rom-com keeps rolling, nearly four decades after the manga began.

Attack on Titan was the curveball. It was on the bill, so technically it showed up, just not as new anime. Instead, MAPPA is producing a fresh opening animation for Attack on Titan 3, a Koei Tecmo action game heading to PS5, Switch 2, Xbox, and Steam, with more details due July 2. Fans who joked "the series ended, so obviously announce more Titan" got their wish in the least expected wrapper: a video game OP.

Netflix ran away with the night

Here's the headline we didn't fully call. That mystery "new project" slot wasn't one reveal. It was two, and both go straight to Netflix worldwide.

BEAT & MOTION arrives in 2027 as a Netflix exclusive. It's a coming-of-age story about a young man who gave up on drawing and an indie musician who refuses to give up on her songs; the two clash, then unlock each other's talent. It's adapted from Naoki Fujita's Shonen Jump+ manga, which won Shueisha's MILLION TAG creator audition. Shuichiro Umeda and Aya Gomazuru voice the leads.

JIMOTO SAIKO! is the wilder pick. Based on usagi's viral manga, it sets a deliberately adorable art style against a story full of hard edges: poverty, violence, a hometown the girls insist is "the absolute best" no matter what chaos swirls around them. The teaser rides on "milk" by singer-songwriter aiko, who calls herself a superfan of the manga.

One note for anyone who read our prediction: we floated a brand-new original IP as the dream surprise. That's the one thing these new projects weren't, since both are manga adaptations. But both are also the first wave from the Netflix-MAPPA strategic partnership announced back in January 2026, which reframes the whole evening. The real story isn't a single original; it's that MAPPA's pipeline now has a global distributor wired in from day one. Ranma's October slot sits on Netflix too, so the platform was the night's connective tissue.

The wishlist stayed a wishlist

The long shots stayed long shots, just as the card warned.

No Vinland Saga Season 3: the "maybe this anniversary" chorus sang again and went home unanswered for another year. No Hell's Paradise Season 3 either. And the Yuri!!! on ICE film, the dream horse officially cancelled in 2024, stayed dead, summoned in the replies anyway, half joke and half ache. Every one of those was flagged as a wish rather than a bet, so the card came through clean: nobody who read the odds got blindsided.

Final tally

The verdict: the favorites all landed, the dreams all stayed dreams, and the only real shock wore a Netflix logo. Half the program had leaked in advance, but for a fanbase that ran the night as a betting pool, it was a clean sheet.

One more for the calendar: MAPPA EXPO 15th Anniversary runs September 16 to December 7 at Tokyo's Yurakucho Museum, with Chainsaw Man, Attack on Titan, and Jujutsu Kaisen art on display before the show tours other cities.

If your favorite studio held a 15th-anniversary stream, which announcement would make you drop everything: a sequel you've waited years for, or a brand-new swing nobody saw coming?

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