Art Mariage is a Japanese art trading company that specializes in many Japanese art forms, one of which is the animation cel for Japanese anime. With the increasing popularity of computer-assisted animation and even pure digital production, cels are now more of a rare collectible full of all our favorite anime from the last millennium. We visited Art Mariage's Animation Cel from the 80s and 90s exhibition held from June 13 to July 3 in Shibuya, Tokyo to bring you this exquisite collection of beautiful, hand-drawn cels that would form some of our best-loved stories.
Cels are transparent sheets originally made from celluloid (hence the name cel) used in animation so that characters can be overlaid onto backgrounds and the number of frames minimized. This speeds up production and reduces cost. Cels fell out of fashion at the end of the 90s as computers became mainstream. Some animation studios sold their cels as collectibles, which is why we were able to admire the Art Mariage collection.
Off we go~!
Hey, I know this anime!
One Piece!
Hunter x Hunter
All of the cels were originals used in the anime, as verified by professional cel connoisseur Taira Yoshihiro. Each of them captures a moment in the story, and is beautifully painted down to the very last detail to fully express the emotions and actions of the character. As an anime fan, owning a piece of cel is like owning a piece of your favorite anime. This is likely one of the reasons why cels are such popular collectibles.
Urusei Yatsura
Even Sailor Moon is here!
Check out more cels below and see how many anime you can spot!
This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode original article with photography by S. Takemori