Bleach & One Piece Release Rare Limited Manga Art for Purchase

Starting on March 21, four new works from Tite Kubo’s “Bleach / Black, Blank & Bleed” exhibition and two new works from Eiichiro Oda’s “One Piece / Wild Parties Part1” series are available on the Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage official website. Since the high-quality hand-signed prints are in limited quantities, there is a lottery period (from March 21 to March 25) to apply to purchase one.

There are only 20 prints produced per artwork. Of those, only 10 are available online via the lottery system, and 10 more at the gallery in Azabudai Hills where the “Bleach / Black, Blank & Bleed” exhibition is running until May 6, 2024. The exhibition is open to all, but prospective buyers need to book entry to the lounge to discuss the possibility of purchasing the pieces of art.

Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage: High-Quality Prints from Iconic Manga

The new Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage permanent gallery has set out to produce collectible artworks from popular manga that are printed on high-quality materials. The works are printed with light-resistant pigmented ink on archival 100% cotton paper used in museum collections. “Supervised by the manga artists themselves, we deliver uncompromising works of art using the best materials and technology available today,” Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage states.

The monochrome prints are made using a rare German-made Heidelberg printing press from the 1960s. It has always been the preferred method for printing manga by Shueisha, but it’s gotten rarer over the years. “This method produces a completely unique page surface with a physical effect that is impossible to achieve using offset printing, lithography, or silkscreen printing,” Shueisha Manga Art Heritage’s website states.

Furthermore, as the prints are produced in a limited number, their value increases. Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage says that it uses “an art blockchain network to keep these assets secure and manage their historical information.” This is a system akin to the one used for NFT (non-fungible token) art. The lucky few who purchase a print will receive a certificate included in the box.

Finally, the prints are hand-signed and sealed by the artist.

This manga art selling platform is set to be a cross-border e-commerce venture, so you can enter the lottery regardless of whether you’re in Japan or abroad. The items are shipped internationally as well.

You need to register an account to apply. More details of the art works as well as prices are only available to registered members.

There’s more information on the official website.

New Manga Prints: Bleach

The manga art in this series is new, and it contains a total of 10 new Bleach artworks created in 2024 for the exhibition in Azabudai Hills, at the Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage gallery from March 8 to May 6. This is the second release containing four prints. The first sale was a month prior, starting on February 22, 2024. There were also a few other original artworks in November 2023, when the Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage gallery opened.

The prints in the Bleach exhibition are divided into two categories: the “Real Color Collection” and “The Press,” a monochrome series. The second lottery period from March 21 offers four of the “Real Color Collection” works for sale. In addition to the image of the kimono-clad characters above, the other three works depict Ichigo and members of the Gotei 13 squads, as well as the Arrancar villains. For the Gotei 13 image, they are dressed in Japanese delinquent-like outfits, while one image of the Arrancars shows them in corresponding white outfits.

New Manga Prints: One Piece

One Piece has had several exhibits of its own at Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage since its opening in November 2023. At different points, different artworks were for sale, and this time there are two new One Piece drawings.

One is the work pictured above. It depicts the whole Straw Hat Pirates crew with additional, previously unseen animals. The other one was drawn to commemorate the 1,000th episode of One Piece. It depicts the crew rolling in treasures.

Bleach Exhibition in Azabudai Hills

Kubo’s “Bleach / Black, Blank & Bleed” exhibition is on show at the Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage Tokyo Gallery in Azabudai Hills until May 6, 2024. The whole series of new art works is being exhibited for fans to enjoy.

The gallery is open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m, and is closed on Mondays. The entrance is free.

About Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage

Manga is a form of popular entertainment that’s produced fast and cheaply. While this makes it accessible to all, it also makes it difficult to preserve manga drawings with high art value. “Original manga drawings are susceptible to degradation over time. The paper-bonded dialogue typeface becomes discolored, the dye ink color work fades, and the tape to which the tracing paper was attached deteriorates and peels off,” says the iconic manga publisher Shueisha.

In 2007, Shueisha launched the Comics Digital Archives (CDA), which is a digital archive of manga. It also established the Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage “to pass down the art of manga to the next generation with the help of digital technology.” The website was then launched on March 1, 2021. It became Shueisha’s first cross-border e-commerce service, selling manga art worldwide.

On November 24, 2023, Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage opened its first brick-and-mortar gallery as part of the Azabudai Hills complex. So far, it has held exhibitions of manga drawings from One Piece and Bleach, as well as The Rose of Versailles and The Window of Orpheus by Riyoko Ikeda.

Shueisha Manga-Art Heritage has also held manga exhibitions abroad, including one for Tite Kubo in New York last year and another for Keiichi Tanaami in Los Angeles last month.

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