Collector Recon · Newsletter No. 004 · covers October 11–13, 2026

Christie's second anime sale is live through Oct 22. A collector's guide to what is on the table: cels, genga, and why the cel supply stopped growing.

Christie's New York has its second anime and manga sale open online through October 22, about 130 lots with a collective estimate of $344,350 to $523,200, The Art Newspaper reported on September 22. The lots it names are an original cel of Kaneda on his motorbike from Akira (1988) and a cel from Dragon Ball Z: Fusion Reborn (1995), each estimated at $5,000 to $7,000, a Pokémon series production cel at $2,000 to $3,000, original drawings by Osamu Tezuka and Ultraman soft vinyl figures. Viewing ran October 8 to 12 at Christie's New York, the week of New York Comic Con.

Production cel of San riding a white wolf at night from Princess Mononoke, over its painted background, with the cel label B10 in the corner — A Princess Mononoke production cel of San on the wolf, one of the lots in Christie's October sale, laid over its painted background. The B10 in the corner is the cel's layer and frame label. Image: Christie's

The sale is the sequel to Anime Starts Here: Japanese Subculture Reimagines Tradition, which ran online March 18 to 31 and totaled $1,442,466 with the buyer's premium on 41 lots, per Christie's own results page. That is more than four times the low estimate, per The Art Newspaper, and the estimates were modest: the majority under $10,000 and many under $3,000 before fees, per Artnet's preview. Takaaki Murakami, who heads Christie's Japanese and Korean art department, told Artnet that "many of our collectors today grew up with manga and anime."

What the first sale said about the buyers

Il Sole 24 Ore reported that 35% of the buyers were Millennials or Gen Z and 36% were new to Christie's, and that three of the 41 lots went unsold, one of them a Yoshitomo Nara drawing estimated at $80,000 to $120,000. Ito Ikuko's Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon sketch sold for $88,900 with fees on a $5,000 low estimate, the top anime work in the sale; a Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind animation cel made $12,700 on a $3,500 base, per Il Sole. The overall top lot was a metalwork sculpture, Shiomi Ryosuke's Wolf and Armor, at $698,500.

The debut was a Japanese art sale with anime in it, and the anime lots produced the multiples. The October sale is built around them.

The other house, and the comps that already exist

Heritage has run this category for years. Its Art of Anime Vol. VIII sale on May 15 to 17 totaled $2.5 million across 1,206 lots with 100% sell-through and 2,665 bidders, a record for an anime-focused animation art auction against its prior $1.48 million, per the Heritage release carried by Anime News Network. Two cels tied at the top, $73,200 each: a Pokémon Pikachu production cel with its key master background, a record for Pokémon production art, and an Akira production cel of Tetsuo, Kaori and Kaneda's motorcycle. A Princess Mononoke cel of San made $67,100, a Totoro Catbus cel $46,360, a Cowboy Bebop Spike cel $20,740 and an End of Evangelion cel $19,520. The Vol. VI sale in March 2025 totaled $1.491 million, led by a Berserk harmony cel setup at $102,000, per Intelligent Collector. In October 2023 Heritage sold an Akira cel of Kaneda riding his motorcycle for $48,000, the same sale as a $144,000 Majin Vegeta cel, per JustCollecting.

That last one is the comp to hold against Christie's catalogue. The Kaneda cel in New York carries a $5,000 to $7,000 estimate; the Kaneda motorcycle cel at Heritage made $48,000 three years ago, and the top Akira cel this May made $73,200. Cels are unique, so the shot, the condition and whether the background is original all move the number, and the two cels are not the same frame. The estimate and the results still sit an order of magnitude apart.

Cels, genga, douga: what a lot actually is

Anime production art comes out of a chain, and each link is a different object with a different supply.

Production cel of Kanta under a red umbrella from My Neighbor Totoro, over a painted background whose green wash runs past the frame — A My Neighbor Totoro production cel of Kanta under his umbrella, another lot in the sale, over its painted background. The green wash running past the edge is the background painting beyond the camera frame; the number in the corner is the cel's sequence label. Image: Christie's

Storyboard and layout. The storyboard (e-conte) plans the cut; the layout sets the framing and the positions of characters and background for that cut. Both are working drawings on paper.
Genga. The key animation: the drawings by the key animator that define the poses of a movement, pencil on paper, often with corrections by the animation director on a colored sheet laid over them. Genga carry the animator's hand most directly, and a named animator's genga are collected as drawings in their own right.
Douga. The clean-up and in-between drawings, made from the genga by in-betweeners. These are the drawings that were actually traced onto cels, so a douga is the paper twin of a cel.
Cel. A sheet of clear acetate with the douga's line traced on the front and paint applied by hand on the back. One cel is one layer of one frame; a cut has dozens, labeled by layer and frame number. A "pan cel" is a wider sheet for a camera move; a "harmony cel" is finished with painted texture so it reads like the background, which is what the Berserk lot at Heritage was.
Background. Painted on paper or board by the art department. A cel sold with its own background is a "setup"; a "master" or "key master" background is the painting made for that cut, as against a reused one. A setup with a matching master background is the most complete object a cut can produce.
Settei. Model sheets. Usually printed copies distributed to the staff, so a settei is reference material, unique only when it is the original drawing.

Production cel of Super Saiyan 3 Goku from Dragon Ball Z, cropped, with the cel label A5 in the corner — A Dragon Ball Z production cel of Super Saiyan 3 Goku from the sale, cropped. The color is hand-painted on the back of the acetate, which is why the line work on the front stays crisp; A5 marks the layer and frame. Image: Christie's

The supply point is this: studios stopped painting cels when they moved to digital color, which for most of the industry happened around the turn of the century. Every cel that will ever exist already does, and the acetate and paint age. The drawings under them, the genga and douga, are still made on paper by many studios, so for anything produced since the switch, the paper is the only production original. A buyer in Christie's sale is choosing between a finite object (a cel) and a category that keeps growing (paper), and the prices above are mostly for the first kind.

What to watch

The sale closes October 22. The Kaneda cel's result against its $5,000 to $7,000 estimate, and against Heritage's $48,000 and $73,200 Akira results, is the first direct read on whether Christie's bidders price the title the way Heritage's do. The share of new and young buyers in the second sale, if Christie's publishes it, shows whether March's 36% new-bidder figure was a launch effect.

Sources

← BACK TO THE NEWSLETTER

GET THE NEXT ISSUE The biggest graded sales, auctions and news in TCG, video games and anime art, every figure sourced and dated. Free, Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. SUBSCRIBE AT COLLECTORRECON.XYZ →