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While his international recognition may not be at Studio Ghibli levels quite yet, Mamoru Hosoda undoubtedly deserves to be called one of the most influential anime directors of his generation. Having broken through with The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (2006), the Toyama native enjoyed a particularly impressive run in the 2010s, when he released Wolf Children (2012) and The Boy and the Beast (2015) before scoring a Best Animated Feature Oscar nomination with Mirai (2018).
With the Studio Chizu founder celebrating two decades in the big time this year – and his most recent film, 2025’s divisive Scarlet, now available on Netflix across Asia, Europe and the US – the time feels right for an ambitious Hosoda retrospective.
And that’s exactly what Creative Museum Tokyo is serving up with ‘The Creative Origins of Mamoru Hosoda’, a nothing if not comprehensive exhibition running from June 20 to August 31. An excavation of the influences and process behind Hosoda’s films, the show details the director’s trajectory from his earliest experiments right through to his landmark works.
A journey to the very beginning
Drawing on more than 300 production materials – storyboards, layouts, key animation drawings, background art and character design documents – ‘Origins’ recaps its protagonist’s career faithfully, beginning with Hosoda’s first job at Toei Animation, where he started in 1991 as animator and worked his way up to director.
Extending across four thematic areas spanning approximately 1,200 square metres of exhibition space, the show recounts how Hosoda eventually struck out on his own and went on to direct a string of critically acclaimed features. The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars (2009) announced a warm and inventive sensibility, rooted in family and human connection yet unafraid of formal ambition, while Belle (2021), selected for Cannes’ prestigious Première section, ended up as Hosoda’s biggest box office hit to date.
Among the most noteworthy exhibits in the introductory part is the first public showing of an animated short Hosoda shot on 8mm film while still in middle school, more than 40 years ago. The motifs in this flick appear curiously connected to his present work, as actor Shota Sometani, who has appeared in four of Hosoda’s films, noted at the press preview.
Three films, one vision
The exhibition’s three main areas are devoted to, respectively, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Summer Wars and Wolf Children – works that together form the creative and thematic core of Hosoda’s filmography.
Each section offers an unusually granular look at the production process. For The Girl Who Leapt Through Time alone, approximately 450 storyboard pages are on display, along with layouts, background paintings and original animation drawings. Among these is the final cut to be completed for the film: a breathless sequence of 720 drawings in which protagonist Makoto races across the city.
A dedicated video installation in this section assembles footage of skies and clouds from across Hosoda’s films, riffing on a motif that recurs throughout his work. As noted in the explanatory text, these summery cumulus formations are described by Hosoda as ‘a presence of longing that lifts the spirits of his protagonists’ – a small but telling detail that illuminates how the director’s visual language serves his emotional intentions.
The world of Oz, life-size
Summer Wars receives perhaps the most spectacular spatial treatment. Making use of the venue’s five-metre-high ceilings, an immersive area recreates the visual world of Oz, the film’s fictional online universe, complete with life-size figures of King Kazma and Love Machine.
Hosoda notes that Summer Wars, made back when smartphones were still in their infancy, now reads with uncanny prescience: ‘AI as the enemy – that’s exactly the world we’re living in now,’ he says. ‘Films are interesting in that way: something comes back around, and you rediscover the same things.’
An unbroken thread
What emerges most powerfully from ‘The Creative Origins of Mamoru Hosoda’ is a portrait of a filmmaker whose obsessions – the passage of time, family bonds, the encounter between ordinary life and something irreducibly strange – have remained remarkably consistent across four decades.
And the merch? There’s plenty of it. The exhibition is accompanied by a gift shop stocking more than 100 exclusive items, as well as an Oz Café serving themed dishes and drinks inspired by Hosoda’s films.
‘The Creative Origins of Mamoru Hosoda’ is on view at Creative Museum Tokyo in Kyobashi from June 20 to August 31. Following its Tokyo run, the exhibition travels to Osaka (October 28 2026 – January 4 2027) and Fukuoka (January 22 – March 28 2027).
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