The Pompo Team Reunites for an Original Film
WASTED CHEF marks the first fully original project from director Takayuki Hirao, who earned international attention with 2021's Pompo: The Cinéphile. The film reunites much of that movie's core staff at studio CLAP, the boutique animation house founded by producer Ryōichirō Matsuo after stints at Madhouse.
Shingo Adachi (Sword Art Online, Lycoris Recoil) returns as character designer, while Kenta Matsukuma — who scored Pompo and has produced music for acts like BiSH and ATARASHII GAKKO! — handles the soundtrack. Hirao's earlier directing credits include The Garden of Sinners: Paradox Spiral and the God Eater TV series, but WASTED CHEF represents his first crack at a story he built from scratch.
The project was revealed by Comic Natalie alongside a teaser visual showing two characters happily assembling hamburgers in a warm, inviting scene. That cozy image sits in sharp contrast to the film's tagline: "That day, 'you' and 'taste' disappeared from the world."
Cooking Meets Sci-Fi — and a Latin Clue
Hirao and Matsuo presented WASTED CHEF at the Annecy Animation Showcase, a curated sidebar at the 79th Cannes Film Festival that ran May 15-17. Japan served as the 2026 Country of Honor at the festival's Marche du Film, giving Japanese animation a prominent spotlight on the Croisette.
During their presentation, the pair explained that the film uses the collision of cooking and science fiction to explore what "value" means in the modern world. They also dropped a narrative hint: the Latin word restaurare — meaning "to heal" or "to restore" — holds the key to the story.
The tagline's promise that both a person and the concept of taste vanish from the world suggests WASTED CHEF is aiming for something more ambitious than a straightforward food anime. Combining the sensory warmth of cooking with the conceptual scale of sci-fi is a bold swing, and the Pompo team's track record with visually inventive, emotionally punchy filmmaking makes it a pairing worth watching.
Looking Ahead
WASTED CHEF is targeting a 2027 release, with a runtime listed at 119 minutes on the Marche du Film's project page. A teaser trailer will screen before revival showings of Pompo: The Cinéphile starting May 29, 2026 — the first chance for audiences to see the film in motion.
No cast has been announced yet, and international distribution details remain under wraps. Given CLAP's partnership with established distributors for Pompo — which screened at multiple international festivals and saw theatrical runs outside Japan — a global release strategy for WASTED CHEF seems likely, though nothing has been confirmed.
The film was one of five works-in-progress selected for the Annecy Animation Showcase at Cannes, alongside projects from France, Mexico, and fellow Japanese entry Hidari, a stop-motion samurai film from dwarf studios. That company puts WASTED CHEF in a strong position heading into the 2025 Annecy International Animation Film Festival this June, where it could surface again with new material.