Manga at auction, Japan's most pop hits New York
Between Sailor Moon and Totoro, Japanese comics arrived on Christie's rostrum with their ancestors. Miyazaki's gift to Macron
When even Christie's dedicates an auction to manga, anime and their ancestors, it means that the world's great collecting is really changing face. If that auction then closes on 31 March 2026, the day on which French president Emmanuel Macron, on a state visit to Japan, receives from master Hayao Miyazaki an animation cell with a personalised dedication of "Porco Rosso" (1992), then the coincidence becomes almost "astral" (without considering the Dragon Ball-style greeting that the French president staged with premier Sanae Takaichi). And on 31 March, an animation cel of Hayao Miyazaki's 'Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind' fetched $12,700 (base estimate $3,500) in the "Anime Starts Here: Japanese Subculture Reimagines Tradition" auction organised by the auction house's New York office.
High revaluation rates
The online auction, held from 18 to 31 March 2026, closed with total proceeds of $1,442,466. Certainly not a sum for a major auction, but interesting to understand the dynamics of a market that has recently risen to the highest ranks. Net of the three pre-auction withdrawals, only three lots were not sold out of the 41 offered (90% sell-through rate; among the unsold lots, curiously enough, a drawing on paper by Yoshitomo Nara valued at $80,000-120,000 and a Hello Kitty toy valued at $1,000). More importantly, the revaluation of the works was more than five times the base estimate (+407%).
Top Lots and New Collectors
Above them all, the top lot: the 2019 work by Ryosuke Shiomi (1989), 'Wolf and Armor', which fetched 35 times its minimum estimate to reach $698,500. The adjudication earned Shiomi his world record sale. The most important strictly anime-manga work was, however, the drawing 'Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon' by illustrator Ikuko Ito (1961): from a minimum estimate of $5,000 it jumped almost 18 times to $88,900 and third place on the podium. While the most expensive purely traditional work (runner-up) in the entire online sale was a print of the iconic 'Great Wave' by Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849), with a hammer price of six times the minimum estimate, $228,600.
Virtually nothing sold below the pre-sale valuation range. In terms of age, Millennial and Gen Z buyers accounted for 35 per cent, while the total share of new bidders was 36 per cent.
A winning mix
The selection of Takaaki Murakami, Head of Christie's Japanese and Korean Art Department, capable of eclectically mixing traditional and contemporary works of the so-called Japanese "subculture", proved to be a winner. Three world records were set. In addition to Ryosuke Shiomi, those of artists Yayoi Kusama (1929) and Shiozaki Ken (1972) were noted. The former obtained a very good result ($50,000) for a surfboard belonging to the collection made in collaboration with Louis Vuitton; the latter, $50,000 for a "Big Wave with two whales".
Among the works that can be defined as proto-manga, drawings by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1798-1861), a suit of armour from the Edo period ($22,860 from a base of $8,000), film posters such as that of "Tonari no Totoro" (My Neighbour Totoro), 1989, by the legendary Studio Ghibli, sold for $3.556 dollars or that of 'Akira' from 1988, which changed hands for just over 2,000 dollars, and three Hokusai booklets, 'Kinoe no Komatsu (Pining for Love)', an astonishing 19th century expression of Japan's bizarre erotic imagery ($35,560 from a base estimate of 15,000).
