Thank you for visiting our booth at Anime Expo 2026. We're a small team, and this show meant a lot to us: four days of conversations, wishes, messages, and moments we're still thinking about. If you stopped by, took a photo with us, or left something on one of our walls, we made this page so you could come back and find it. And if you missed us this year, here’s a walkthrough.
Oshi Booth
Our exhibit featured displays for two titles, each anchored by a layered character key visual with LED light strips to bring out the depth of the artwork. This was our first time designing a booth with two different themes, connected by a gradient center that carried you from one world into the other.
Living in a World Without Magic
Living in a World Without Magic began six years ago as a seven-minute music video, animated entirely by one artist, Akiwashi. It follows Sara, Haru, and Akane in a world where magic doesn't exist, and asks what we hold onto instead: devotion, love, and the wishes we carry for each other. That world has kept growing through Akiwashi's own time ever since, and it's now on its way to becoming a film.
The first wall was all about the story. It featured the art from our campaign and our new emblem designs, key shots from the animation, and before-and-after comparisons of the original line art next to the final versions of the artwork.
We had the honor of displaying illustrations by Akiwashi, who drew art beyond the music video she animated herself, showing how the world continued through her own time. We placed her pieces on a living wall, framed among flowers and leaves, to reflect the life she put into this story. In the middle, a TV played the music video on loop, alongside RKGK (rakugaki, 落書き, meaning sketch) of the three main characters of the story, as well as a message from the author herself from the official website.
The Wishing Wall
Our main feature was the wishing wall. In the story, Sara asks what your three wishes are, so as an activity, we invited attendees to write a wish on the wall using colored butterflies, flowers, and leaves. Over four days, the wall overflowed with wishes, each one individually written by someone.
We also had special moments with cosplayers who immersed themselves in the wishing wall in their beautiful cosplays. Here's a collection of our favorites. If you see yourself, please tag us when you share!
Haru's Rebirth
In the center was an immersive display of Haru's rebirth in the flower coffin, an important scene in the music video where Sara sacrifices herself for Haru, who is then reawakened by Akane. The display featured a character cutout covered in flowers within the coffin, alongside a looping video of the rebirth scene animated by Akiwashi herself.
The Carnation
We gave away carnations with a tag featuring one of the song lyrics: "I don't need magic, you're all I need."
The carnation represents devotion, love, and admiration, and we recommended attendees gift their flower to someone special, or keep it themselves as a reminder that they're someone special too. It was one of our most popular items; by the end of the weekend we saw our flowers all across the venue, even in the hands of the booth contractors and builders.
Along with the flower, visitors received a postcard of the key visual and a special thank-you message digitally handwritten by Akiwashi.
This exhibit was quite special to us. Many attendees came to learn about Living in a World Without Magic for the first time, and many recognized the music video from six years ago. This was also Akiwashi's first time exhibiting her works in the US, and we were honored to present them with this design.
GATE 2: Tides of Conflict
GATE 2: Tides of Conflict continues the story of GATE, the series many fans first discovered 8–10 years ago, in which a gate opens between our modern world and the Special Region, a land of fantasy, creatures, and conflict. The new season is adapted from the light novel and is being animated by Studio M2.
GATE 2 isn't expected to air until 2027, so we're still early in production, which is what made this exhibit rare. It took a lot of trust for the studio to share their work before the show even airs, and we're grateful they did. Many fans recognized GATE from season one, and we wanted to display the art of animation to show just how much work goes into it. Even a full exhibit doesn't cover enough of it.
Into the Studio
This section featured photographs of Studio M2 doing a script reading with the author, shots of the storyboards that outline how an episode plays out, and original sketches from the director himself on how he envisions the light novel.
The Oshikatsu Board
Next was the oshikatsu board, where we invited attendees to write a message to the creators as an opportunity to connect directly with the team in Japan. The messages were so supportive of the production, and we're gathering each and every one to translate and send to the studio, so they can see how far their work reaches.
This board is a physical version of our Oshi platform, where supporters can leave messages for Studio M2. It was such a warming moment for us to read everyone's messages and drawings of the characters. Seeing how many people sketched actually gave us inspiration to add drawing as a feature on our platform, since so many anime fans are artists themselves who express things visually.
Settei
The next panels displayed prop settings: military props, fantasy props from the Special Region, and animals and creatures. Every asset in animation is drawn with at least 2–3 design sheets for line art, shadowing, and color. There's so much care and research put into settei sheets to make sure the animation locks in the world-building and stays accurate to the theme.
Character Sheets
Then came the character sheets: facial expressions from line art to color, along with before-and-after comparisons of key frames to final color. Tokushima, Primera, Odette, and Shura were each highlighted with their expression sheet and full-body character design, all done by Shigeru Fujita-san. It was a rare opportunity for us to display these artworks this early in production.
Giveaways
As our promotional merchandise, we gave away our first key visual clear file, a settei expression sheet of Tokushima, and a postcard of the second key visual. The settei sheet was a first of its kind for many people, and we hope it helps show how much work goes into anime from the production side.
The Oshi Kiosk
In the center of it all was our Oshi kiosk, where many of us handed out the merchandise. We also gave away our Oshi fan, since we knew Anime Expo tends to get quite hot, and we thought we'd have some fun with it by drawing our mascot in a meme pointing at our QR code.
Thank You
We were honored to exhibit both of these worlds side by side. Thank you to everyone who shared kind words about our booth design, and to our neighbors who helped us during the booth build and gave us advice. We appreciate you.
Anime Expo 2026 was truly a special event for us, and we appreciate everyone who was part of it. If you visited our booth, we hope you find yourself in the galleries above. And if you share your photos, tag us so we can see them too.
If you're just getting to know us: the GATE 2 campaign is live now, and there's more coming for Living in a World Without Magic later this year. We hope to see you there.
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