Final Fantasy Artist Yoshitaka Amano: Final Weeks of His Rio Show

BRAZIL · ART

The Yoshitaka Amano CCBB Rio exhibition, the largest of the Japanese artist’s career, enters its final weeks before closing on June 22. Gathering 218 original works across seven thematic cores plus an immersive room, the free show offers a rare close look at the illustrator who shaped the visual identity of the Final Fantasy games and much else besides.

What the Yoshitaka Amano CCBB Rio show gathers

The exhibition brings together 218 original paintings and illustrations, including works never before shown to the public, occupying every room on the second floor of the cultural centre. Curated and conceived by Antonio Curti, it presents a broad panorama of one of the most influential figures in global pop culture.

Alongside the framed works, an immersive room built with projection technology expands the sensory experience, with the executive direction framing the aim not as artificially animating the art but as revealing the movement, the waves, serpents and figures, that already seems to breathe within it.

How the Yoshitaka Amano CCBB Rio show is organised

The exhibition is divided into seven thematic cores: Tatsunoko, Final Fantasy, Candy Girl, Devaloka, Vampire Hunter D, Angel’s Egg and Collaborations. Together they trace the artist’s many phases, from early animation work to monumental aluminium pieces and the Candy Girl series painted in automotive ink.

The arrangement reveals rare works, processes and nuances that few have seen up close, deepening the understanding of a trajectory that moves between fine art, illustration, graphic design, fashion and entertainment.

The artist behind the images

Born in 1952 in Japan and now based in Tokyo, Amano began his career at 15 at the Tatsunoko animation studio, contributing to classics such as Speed Racer and Gatchaman. He gained international recognition as the character designer and illustrator of the early Final Fantasy games, helping define the franchise’s visual identity for decades.

His ethereal, expressive style fuses Japanese tradition, including calligraphy, Noh theatre and ukiyo-e woodblock printing, with art nouveau, surrealism and pop art, crossing the lines between the popular and the erudite, East and West.

A third Brazilian visit

This is the third time Amano’s work has been exhibited in Brazil, after a São Paulo run in 2024 and a Belo Horizonte showing that bridged late 2025 and early 2026. The Belo Horizonte edition drew 118,000 visitors, a marker of the strong public appetite for the artist’s work.

After the Rio season closes on June 22, the exhibition travels on to the Banco do Brasil Cultural Centre in Brasília, continuing its national tour.

Visiting in the final weeks

With the run now in its closing stretch, the show is open from Wednesday to Monday, 9am to 8pm, and closed on Tuesdays. Admission is free, with tickets available at the box office or online.

For visitors in Rio over the coming weeks, the exhibition offers a last chance to see the artist’s work at this scale before it leaves the city, an unusually broad survey of a career that has shaped the imagination of generations of players and artists.

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