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Christie’s Situates ‘Sailor Moon’ and ‘Doraemon’ Alongside Hokusai in Its Debut Anime Sale

In Anime Starts Here: Japanese Subculture Imagines Tradition, the auction house pairs historically significant artworks with contemporary cultural artifacts, testing the market power of nostalgia during Asia Week New York.

When Logan Paul’s Pikachu Illustrator card set a new record, selling for $16.5 million at Goldin, it was arguably something of an aberration—the next most valuable Pokémon cards in the world have all sold for mid-six-figure sums. But in some ways, the eight-figure result is more proof that nostalgia is a powerful market driver in the collectibles space. It’s impossible to predict whether Pokémon cards and their ilk will become an asset class, even with the enduring momentum of the franchise’s cultural mythology, but they certainly tap into some impulse in buyers that is likewise stirred by manga and anime more broadly.

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The powerful visual storytelling, emotional resonance and richly layered mythologies embedded in manga, anime and franchises like Pokémon have not only shaped contemporary Japanese culture during its rapid postwar modernization but also shaped the tastes of people around the world. For younger Millennial and Gen Z collectors, collectibles in this space represent more than objects; they offer a sense of belonging in a community of peers who grew up immersed in the same narrative universes.

Major auction houses are beginning to explore the category’s potential, leveraging the popularity of manga and anime to engage the younger audiences they are increasingly eager to attract. Christie’s announced today (Feb. 26) that it will hold its first-ever sale pairing anime and manga collectibles with traditional Japanese art. The online Anime Starts Here: Japanese Subculture Imagines Tradition sale will debut during Asia Week New York on March 18 and run through March 31. Marking a first for the auction house, the sale is a curated visual dialogue between Japan’s classical artistic heritage and the modern subcultural movements that have helped shape contemporary global culture. The lots range from historical Katsushika Hokusai woodblock prints to Ito Ikuko’s original Sailor Moon drawings and a Doraemon animation cel, alongside work by artists such as Yoshitomo Nara, who brought aspects of the anime aesthetic into the contemporary art realm.

On the manga side, a key highlight is an original drawing by Tezuka Osamu for Princess Knight, dated 1953, offered with an estimate of $12,000-22,000. Considered one of the greatest and most influential cartoonists of all time, Tezuka was a true pioneer of manga and original works by him are scarce on the market. This piece was personally gifted to a friend, strengthening its provenance.

The sale also includes a print of Katsushika Hokusai’s Under the Wave off Kanagawa (Kanagawa-oki nami-ura), widely known as The Great Wave and one of the most iconic and universally recognized Japanese artworks. Offered from a private U.S. collection with an estimate of $40,000-60,000, the work carries enduring global appeal. (Last November, another example fetched HK$21,725,000, around $2.7 million, in Sotheby’s HK$688M sale of works from the Okada Museum of Art.) Approximately 8,000 impressions were originally produced, though only about 130 prints are believed to survive. Comparable examples are held in the collections of the British Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The sale also features another signed woodblock print by Hokusai from the series Fugaku sanjurokkei (Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji), carrying an estimate of $6,000-8,000, as well as three volumes of the woodblock-printed illustrated book Kinoe no Komatsu (Pining for Love), offered with a high estimate of $25,000.

Manga and anime are increasingly seen by experts and collectors as major cultural products and legitimate art forms rather than underground or niche expressions, as evidenced by museum exhibitions including the recently closed “Art of Manga” show at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. This shift marks a cultural reappraisal, with younger generations reshaping cultural and market perceptions around Japan’s graphic and animated arts. “People today see manga and anime as serious art—not just entertainment,” Takaaki Murakami, Christie’s Asian department specialist, tells Observer. Even in Japan, he notes, they were never only for children. “From the beginning, manga and anime reflected the mood of society.”

For example, Astro Boy by Tezuka Osamu embodied hope during postwar reconstruction and a strong belief in technology. In the 1980s, Miyazaki Hayao’s Nausicaä offered a more cautious perspective, showing how industrial growth and nuclear power could harm nature and humanity. In the 1990s, Evangelion captured the uncertainty of Japan after the bubble economy collapsed, a period marked by financial instability and an identity crisis. “Each era has its spokesperson. These works express how people feel about the society they live in,” Murakami says, acknowledging how, in many ways, manga and anime trace the history of contemporary Japan.

What is particularly compelling is how these works maintain a dialogue with history. While they emerged in response to Japan’s accelerated modernization, tradition remains deeply embedded in the country’s cultural fabric, visible in the symbologies, mythologies and value systems that manga and anime continue to carry forward. The word “manga” itself traces back to Hokusai’s Hokusai Manga, a series of printed books containing his sketches of daily life, animals, spirits and ghosts. “They were originally instructional materials for his students and didn’t follow a narrative storyline. But the dramatic compositions and dynamic brushwork created a strong sense of movement,” Murakami explains, noting how many modern artists were influenced by Hokusai. “What’s exciting is how contemporary manga and anime both inherit and reshape this tradition. You can still see Hokusai’s sense of motion in modern works.”

The selection of works in the sale was chosen to highlight the deep connections between manga, anime and Japan’s artistic and cultural traditions. This dynamic tension between radical contemporaneity and enduring heritage is arguably one of the defining characteristics of Japanese culture itself. Notably, when it comes to collecting manga and anime, the criteria closely mirror those for traditional prints. Collectors focus on quality, rarity and provenance, Murakami explains. “For this sale, many of the lots come from Japanese collectors I have known for years,” he says. Condition also plays a decisive role in determining final prices, with third-party grading, such as PSA for cards and CGC for comics, providing greater objectivity and clearer market standards. Near-mint or historically well-preserved works command premiums, while pieces tied to historically significant creators, such as Osamu Tezuka originals or Hayao Miyazaki production art, are especially prized.

The bidders in the Anime Starts Here sale are likely to skew younger than in other auctions. “Many buyers today are young—they grew up with manga and anime. Now they’re beginning to collect more seriously,” Murakami says, adding that he’s seen growing interest from established collectors. “The recent sale of the Pikachu Illustrator card, for example, helped bring visibility to the category.”

Since spreading internationally in the 1990s, manga and anime have achieved extraordinary global reach, shaping the imagination of audiences worldwide through powerful mythmaking and distinctive visual storytelling. They have influenced values, identities and even worldviews across generations, leaving a lasting imprint on those who grew up with them. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the global anime market is substantial and expanding rapidly. Some industry reports estimate it was worth roughly $37.7 billion in 2025, with projections exceeding $77 billion by 2033 at a CAGR of around 9.2 percent. The global manga market is also experiencing robust growth, with estimates placing it at approximately $10.2 billion in 2025 and projecting expansion to more than $43.8 billion by 2033 at a roughly 20.5 percent CAGR. This notable rise is driven by broader global interest, increased accessibility through digital platforms and cross-media adaptations.

Yet Murakami argues that the roots of this global influence extend much further back. Japanese artists such as Hokusai and Hiroshige helped shape and transform Western art, influencing emerging modern languages, including Impressionism. “Global audiences were already familiar with certain visual ideas from the influence Japanese art had in reshaping the language of early avant-garde movements,” Murakami points out before identifying three additional elements driving manga and anime’s global success.

First, visual clarity: images are simple yet highly expressive, allowing emotion and movement to be immediately legible. Second, a strong character focus enables audiences to follow protagonists over time and witness their growth and struggles. Third, cultural specificity combined with universal themes. Concepts such as samurai duty and honor are deeply rooted in Japanese history yet reflect shared human dilemmas. In this sense, manga and anime operate as contemporary myths, metaphorical explorations of humanity’s central existential questions, achieving a level of timelessness and universality once reserved for ancient fables and legends.

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