MAPPA to Absorb Animation Production Company Contrail
Studio MAPPA will be absorbing Contrail and taking over its obligations and rights, as announced today in the official gazette and reported by Gamebiz. The studio was established in 2019 with the purpose of producing Sunao Katabuchi's works. It operated as a subsidiary of MAPPA.
Katabuchi posted on his official X/Twitter account, stating that management would be integrated and the studio would no longer be an independent company, but that Contrail's name would still be used after the merger. He also clarified that the studio wouldn't be dissolved.
The company ended the previous fiscal year (March 2025) with a debt of 68 million yen (about $434,000),
Katabuchi previously directed MAPPA's In This Corner of the World. His new project, The Mourning Children: Nagiko and the Girls Wearing Tsurubami Black, was Contrail's upcoming work. Katabuchi was also one of the directors of the studio, in addition to his wife, Chie Uratani (The Mourning Children assistant director). MAPPA's Manabu Otsuka was the studio representative director.
Over the years, Contrail has assisted with in-between animation on multiple titles, such as Look Back, Evangelion: 3.0+1.01 Thrice Upon a Time, and key animation on Maboroshi and Suzume. In 2022, Contrail animated the ending for Attack on Titan Final Season Part 2. The ending video was directed and storyboarded by Parako Shinohara, and it featured Ai Huuchi's "Akuma no Ko":
Featured image: Attack on Titan Final Season, ©Hajime Isayama, KODANSHA/“ATTACK ON TITAN” The Final Season Production Committee.
