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Practical5 min read

Chiikawa's First Mainland Show Lands in Shanghai

For the first time on the mainland, Chiikawa takes over Jing'an Kerry Centre with more than 100 life-size sculptures and a Shanghai twist — a 'longtang' food theme built around the city's own lanes. Here is what to know before you go.

By Shanghai Welcome ·

A manga trio, life-sized

Chiikawa — the round-eyed trio of Chiikawa, Hachiware and Usagi from Nagano's minimal comics — makes its mainland China debut at Jing'an Kerry Centre from 12 September to 1 November 2026. The scale is the headline: more than 100 sculptures at one-to-one scale, plus a nine-metre inflatable figure that sits outside the mall as a free, walk-up photo stop.

For readers outside the fandom, the draw is less the story than the atmosphere. The exhibition is a soft, slightly melancholic cuteness that has become a genuine cross-generational phenomenon in East Asia — the kind of thing you go to partly to understand why a small crying mouse sells out cities.

  • •12 September – 1 November 2026, Jing'an Kerry Centre
  • •100+ life-size sculptures, 9m outdoor inflatable
  • •Mainland China debut of the Chiikawa exhibition

The Shanghai twist

What separates this stop from other cities is the localisation. The show introduces a '吉伊卡哇弄堂风味' — a Shanghainese lane-food theme that dresses the characters in the street life of the city's longtang, the alley communities that give central Shanghai its texture. There is also a mid-autumn lantern edition of limited merchandise, timed to the festival season.

It is a small but telling gesture. Shanghai has become a place where global pop culture arrives already translated into local dialect — not just imported, but re-homed. For a visitor, catching the longtang version is a neat way to see the city's habit of adopting the world and making it its own.

  • •弄堂 (lane) food theme exclusive to this stop
  • •Mid-autumn lantern limited merchandise
  • •A window into Shanghai's localised pop culture

Practical: tickets and getting there

The mall is at 1515 Nanjing West Road, on the Nanjing West Road metro line — the same luxury-and-transit corridor that makes central Shanghai so walkable. Early-bird tickets go on sale at 14:00 on 5 September through Maoyan; the paid indoor exhibition runs 10:00 to 22:00 with last entry at 21:00, while the outdoor inflatable is free to visit.

Two notes. The debut is expected to be busy, so the early-bird window is worth respecting if you have fixed dates. And because the venue is a working shopping centre rather than a sealed museum, you can pair the visit with the restaurants and cafés of Nanjing West Road in the same outing — it is an easy half-day, not a pilgrimage.

  • •1515 Nanjing West Road; Nanjing West Road metro
  • •Early-bird sale 5 September 14:00 via Maoyan
  • •Free outdoor inflatable; paid indoor 10:00–22:00

Our planning note

Shanghai's character shows up in odd places — a Japanese mouse reimagined as a lane-food local is one of them. If your dates overlap the run, it is a low-effort, high-delight hour that says more about the city than its heavier attractions sometimes manage.

For visitors who would rather not decode the metro themselves: a private, English-speaking guide folds Nanjing West Road, the Jing'an district and the modern city into one relaxed, all-inclusive half-day — so you simply show up for Chiikawa and look around.

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