In 2010, Takeshi Morioka, a marketer who joined Universal Studios Japan, which was in the doldrums, revamped USJ’s image as a theme park specializing in movies, and launched numerous anime and manga collaboration projects. While the annual number of visitors at the time he joined the company was approximately 7.3 million, the number doubled to 14.6 million in fiscal 2016. This is a remarkable V-shaped recovery. During that time, the company continued to come up with innovative ideas, and it goes without saying that collaborations with anime and manga have played a role in this rapid progress.
In addition, Universal Studios Hollywood will host UNIVERSAL FAN FEST NIGHTS for the first time in April 2025. In this event, “ONE PIECE” and “Jutsu Kaisen” will participate from Japan, offering a special experience that can only be enjoyed at the theme park.
Crossing borders is not the exclusive domain of marketers, however. The economic benefits of the aforementioned collaborations are self-evident, but this is not the first time that cross-border intermingling has occurred. Humanity’s desire to see the unseen has accelerated its dynamism from its first steps out of Africa some 1.8 million years ago, through Neil Armstrong’s walk on the moon aboard Apollo 11, to the present day. The wave of technology that has roared and run shows no signs of abating.
And it has also spread to the world of art.
The “high art” has changed its shape and form, and has scattered all over the place.
Now art is everywhere, from the side of the saying…
IP content extended by art
No one would be unfamiliar with “Dragon Ball” any longer.
In 2019, we teamed up with collage artist Kosuke Kawamura to release “Dragon Ball UT” from UT, UNIQLO’s graphic T-shirt line. The new line features a number of highlights, including Son Goku’s special move “Kamehameha,” which is a new expression of Goku’s special move through shredded design, in which the illustration is cut once and then reconstructed.
In 2017, Kosuke Kawamura developed the “AKIRA” art wall project for Shibuya PARCO. The collaboration between IP content and art was a catalyst for a new wave of urban development. The collaboration between IP content and art was the catalyst that brought a new wind to urban development. It is still fresh in our memories that the project attracted a great deal of attention, including a visit to Japan by Kanye West, who made a personal appearance.
Similar to the previous case, “Pokémon” has also been actively collaborating with other artists, including a collaboration with contemporary artist Daniel Arsham in 2020, which will be shown at the “Pokémon Art Wall” in Shibuya, Tokyo. In 2020, “Pokémon” collaborated with contemporary artist Daniel Arsham on an art project to create a sculpture of “Pokémon unearthed as fossils in the year 3020, 1000 years from now.
Pokémon continued to collaborate with Arsham, and in 2022, Art Publishing Co. released “Daniel Arsham’s Pokémon Book,” a collection of 24 sculptural drawings and 91 paintings.
Furthermore, in 2024, Pokémon will try its hand at collaborating with “crafts. A total of 20 artists, including Morihito Katsura, a living national treasure, have successfully accomplished the multiplication of Pokemon and “kôgei” (craft). The exhibition will tour three locations in Japan in 2025, so you won’t want to miss it.
The hugely popular “Fullmetal Alchemist” both at home and abroad collaborated with ink painter Mikatou in 2017. Sumi-e artists are, as the term implies, artists who draw pictures using ink. Suiboku-ga (Chinese ink painting) is a type of sumi-e (ink painting), and Sesshu, who returned to Japan after training in China, established Japan’s own unique style of suiboku-ga. In this historical ink painting genre, Mikatou focuses on warlords and castles. In addition, he is also known for his ink painting adaptations of anime, movies, and sports. For this project, he has created ink drawings of popular characters from “Fullmetal Alchemist” and printed them on washi paper for sale. The collaboration with Japan’s unique and deep historical culture reinterprets the national anime with a fresh image.
As you can see, collaborations between IP contents and art are occurring simultaneously all over the place. Seeing the fresh appearance of a familiar work of art or a familiar work of art, one senses a hint of something stirring in this ever-changing age. Art and IP will continue to change as if they are living creatures. As a fan, I would like to keep an eye on these changes.
