TV Anime "Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia" Screened at Japan Expo in France! Reasons for Choosing Science SARU and Behind-the-Scenes Location Scouting Stories Revealed

TV anime "Jaadugar: A Witch in Mongolia," currently airing on the TV Asahi network's 24-station "IMAnimation" programming block and others, held a special screening of Act 1 through Act 4 at Japan Expo 2026, one of Europe's largest pop culture events, in Paris, France, on Friday, July 10, 2026.

A large crowd of fans turned out for the event, and before the screening, TV Asahi producer Kazuki Endo took the stage to share the appeal of the work with fans in France.

Speaking about how the anime adaptation came about, producer Endo said, "I originally read the manga and thought it was an incredibly interesting work, so I really wanted to adapt it into an anime myself. As you'll see when you watch it, the art style is heavily deformed and very cute, yet it has a unique balance between serious developments and a hard-hitting story," describing the appeal of the original work.

Regarding what went into selecting the production studio, he revealed, "Flexibly animating these deformed characters actually turned out to be more difficult than drawing realistic, tall human figures, and I felt that adapting this manga into an anime would be tough for an ordinary animation studio. Amid that, I felt Science SARU, a studio that has continually pursued artistic challenges, was the only option, so I reached out to them directly. They deeply resonated with the work as well, and that's how we ended up working together."

He also shared an episode about how key staff members, including general director Naoko Yamada and director Abel Gongora, conducted location scouting in Mongolia. "We looked at museum materials on location, but what left the strongest impression was staying with a family in a ger. By actually staying in the ger of people living as nomads, we were able to experience what their daily life is like, and it gave us a real sense of how the characters, having moved to Mongolia, might have lived and experienced Mongolian culture. I think that experience has been put to great use in the direction of every scene and in many of the depictions," he said, emphasizing how the on-location experience helped elevate the quality of the work.