It’s not just paintings that sell for astronomical prices these days. At a Heritage Auctions event this week a cel setup from Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro went for $84,000. It was nearly 17 times its pre-auction estimate.
The event, known under the name of The Art of Anime and Everything Cool, went on for three days. It was the first of its kind, and in total, animation cels from iconic movies sold for more than $2.1 million. Other cels to go under the hammer came from classic 1980s film Akira, which first brought anime to western audiences, and Miyazaki films like Castle in the Sky and Princess Mononoke. The production cel setup from Akira, which had a pre-auction estimate of $5000, sold for $78,000.
After doing so well with Japanese anime, Heritage Auctions already plans another event to sell animation art in August. It’s also likely to be a financial success story.
