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Tokyo Just Turned an Anime Villain’s Cursed Technique Into a Public Attraction, and It’s Exactly the Kind of Weird We Want More Of

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Side-by-side view showing the anime character Reggie Star holding a stack of receipts and his life-sized interactive promo statue covered in receipt slips at Shibuya Modi.

Have you ever wandered through a street and thought the neighborhood was missing a statue of a badass anime villain? Well, Japan’s Shibuya has actually gone and done something about it. Jujutsu Kaisen just installed a massive, two-meter-tall statue of Reggie Star, one of the show’s more memorable antagonists, covered head to toe in receipts, in the first-floor plaza outside Shibuya Modi, and honestly, this might be one of the more creative anime promotions I’ve seen in a while.

However, it’s running only from July 17 to July 20, 2026, open daily from 12pm to 8pm, so if you’ve already got a trip to Japan planned in that window, this is worth penciling in. But there is still no guarantee that you will get in.

An elevated overview render of CarMax Park stadium in Richmond transformed into the WinterWorld holiday festival, featuring a large ice-skating pond with skaters, a lit-up blue Ferris wheel, a towering Christmas tree, a multi-lane ice slide, a light maze, and vibrant blue and white holiday lights throughout the venue.

Public installations have been popping up all over the world this summer, including one Virginia city’s ambitious plan to turn a baseball stadium into a full-blown holiday festival. To know more, read our article Richmond’s $3 Million WinterWorld Plan Could Transform CarMax Park Into Virginia’s Biggest Holiday Festival

In this post, I’ve laid out all the details about this new statue that’s making anime lovers go crazy.

This Is What Fan Engagement Should Actually Look Like

Most anime statues exist purely to be photographed. You stand next to a giant Pikachu or a life-size Goku, snap a picture, and move on. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s passive. You’re a spectator, not a participant.

This Reggie Star statue flips that script. In the show, his whole deal is a cursed technique that lets him summon items by burning receipts tied to them; essentially, he can pull almost anything out of thin air as long as he’s got the paper trail. So instead of just standing there looking imposing, the statue is covered in actual receipts fans can pull off his body. Each one has a QR code, and scanning it enters you into a raffle for prizes based on things Reggie conjured up in the series, with the top prize being a stay for two at a luxury hot spring hotel.

That’s a genuinely clever bit of design. Someone on the marketing side actually sat down, thought about what makes this character interesting, and built an interactive experience around it instead of just slapping his face on a banner. It’s the difference between merchandise that references a show and merchandise that actually understands it.

New public spaces have also been opening up elsewhere recently, including a striking new swimming area carved out of a former quarry. For more on that, read our post Why Is Everyone Talking About Lake Sophia? New York’s First New State Park Swimming Area in Over 20 Years Opens This Week

Absurd Is Underrated, and This Statue Proves It

Standing at over six and a half feet tall, the statue isn’t small by any measure, apparently taller than most NBA players if he were standing up straight. There’s something particularly funny about a franchise going to the trouble of building a massive, half-naked statue of a villain just so people can pluck lottery tickets off his exposed torso. It’s a little absurd, and I totally mean that as a compliment. Anime promotion in Japan has always leaned into spectacle, whether that’s giant murals made of rice or oddly specific food tie-ins, and this fits right into that tradition of taking a niche detail from a show and blowing it up into something you have to see in person.

It also helps that the timing lines up with the franchise clearly being in a broader promotional push right now, with this statue just one piece of a wider wave of Jujutsu Kaisen buzz that includes other tie-ins and collaborations tied to the series as anticipation builds around what’s next. Installations like this don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re part of an effort to keep a franchise visible between major releases, and this is a far more memorable way to do that than another billboard.

OCEARCH researchers next to a boat securing a massive great white shark named Contender in the water to attach a satellite tag.

Larger-than-life creatures have also been grabbing headlines lately, including an enormous predator that resurfaced off the US coast. To learn more, check out our article Contender Shark Spotted Off Outer Banks? Meet the Largest Male Great White Ever Tagged in the Atlantic

The 1,400-Person Cap Is My One Real Complaint

The statue is only up for a few days, running through the weekend, and attendance is capped at 1,400 people per day. If you’re not already in Tokyo or don’t have a trip planned in that exact window, you’re mostly just going to be looking at pictures and videos online, which is a pretty different experience than pulling a receipt off a giant villain yourself.

That’s a fairly common limitation with these physical, location-specific promotions, but it does mean the actual audience who gets to participate is pretty small relative to how many people will see it circulating on social media. Whether that tradeoff is worth it probably depends on whether you view these as marketing for the show broadly, in which case the online buzz is the real win, or as a genuine reward for local fans, in which case the cap feels a little stingy given how much attention this is clearly generating.

Either way, I’d rather see franchises take swings like this than settle for another static cardboard cutout. Even if you can’t make it to Shibuya this weekend, it’s a solid reminder that anime promotion doesn’t have to be boring to be effective.

Limited-time promotions have also been everywhere this summer, including a wave of deals tied to a very different kind of celebration. To see the details, read our article National Hot Dog Day 2026 Deals: Which Free and $1 Hot Dog Offers Were Actually Worth Claiming Before They Disappeared?

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