An iconic image from Hayao Miyazaki’s anime classic is ready to adorn the walls of superfans’ homes.
Like many fans of Japanese animation, my student-day bedroom walls used to be covered in cheap bootleg wall scrolls of anime art, as well as even cheaper laminated color photocopy posters of anime art. Now a full-grown adult, I’ve had to scale back the fanboy elements of my home décor, but this gorgeous piece of Studio Ghibli artwork is classy enough to grace the walls of any home.
One of the most beloved images associated with director Hayao Miyazaki’s 1988 classic My Neighbor Totoro, the scene shows sisters Mei and Natsuki frolicking through a field of tall grass, accompanied by the titular forest spirit and his tiny white version. Awash with warm color, it’s a throwback to an earlier era of anime visuals, instilling a sense of nostalgia even in those who didn’t personally live through that age, much like Studio Ghibli’s films themselves do.
To celebrate My Neighbor Totoro’s 30th anniversary, Studio Ghibli is producing a limited (and unspecified) number of reproduction cels. And if the idea of “reproduction” has you thinking that some corporate moneygrubber is just sitting at a computer and clicking “print” over and over again, think again. Each cel is hand-made by Studio Ghibli artists using a silk-screening process, as demonstrated in this preview video.
▼ The cel is colored on both sides, with the character colors applied to its back and the environmental ones to its front.
While this particular drawing doesn’t appear in the film proper, it’s become one of the most iconic pieces of key art for Totoro. Each reproduction cel comes with background art and a frame made of Japanese Kishu Hinoki cypress, bears a hand-printed “edition number,” and is bundled with a certificate of authenticity from Studio Ghibli.
Preorders for the artwork, officially called Cel Art Print From Studio Ghibli My Neighbor Totoro, are now being taken online here through Ghibli merchandise specialist Donguri Kyowakoku. Each cel/frame combo is priced at 70,000 yen (US$640), with shipping scheduled for late July.
Sources: IT Media, PR Times
Top image: PR Times
Insert images: PR Times, YouTube/どんぐり共和国そらのうえ店, Donguri Kyowakoku
Follow Casey on Twitter, where he’s still trying to figure out what to do with that Marmalade Boy cel he has.