Few would deny an original work by Type Moon’s top illustrator 武内崇 / Takashi Takeuchi, of Fate/stay night and Tsukihime fame, to be one capable of commanding a high price, and worth it, but a recent auction in which a single page from a sketchbook, featuring but one rather rough pencil illustration, certainly turned heads when the auction concluded at an impressive ¥456,000.
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A ticket for an Idol Master event, “The Idol M@ster 3rd Anniversary Live” has fetched an impressive ¥138,000, from a starting price of ¥6,500. It would appear to be a good front row seat, at least, though even average seats seem to be fetching ¥50,000. The event in question would appear to be essential attendance for Idol Master fans, since it will have the full cast in attendance, the perfect venue for some otagei perhaps?
But for that kind of money you could probably get a private audience with a seiyuu? For five minutes at least… Via Ore-teki, where we see it is not all price inflation for event tickets; Sakura Taisen tickets just fetched ¥1, for two.
Some enterprising and creative soul has gone to the trouble of etching a refrigerator and a Nintendo DS with characters from Rozen Maiden, and the items are currently up for auction, with a starting price of ¥30,000 for the fridge and ¥20,000 for the DS. For some reason buyers have been slow to pick up on this most creative offering. Images of the items are below.
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Artist Hisashi Tenmyouya’s “RX-78-2 Kabuki-mono 2005 Version”, went for HK$4.8 million (about $600,000) at a recent Hong Kong auction; certainly a gorgeous illustration by any estimation. Hisashi Tenmyouya covers both classical and more modern themes in his art, though always in a finely executed classical style.
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“My Lonesome Cowboy”, a figure created by Japanese pop artist 村上隆 / Takashi Murakami, was auctioned off at $15 million in a New York auction, vastly exceeding the expected price of $3-4 million.
The 254cm high figure (including his ejaculation, otherwise roughly life size), which might thus also be called a statue, depicts a naked man engaged in an act of fantastic onanism, in the style of a shonen manga. It was created using steel, acrylic and fiberglass in 1998.
According to Sotheby’s, the highest price previously fetched by Murakami’s work was “Panda”, at a positively meager $3 million, so this represents something of a triumph for him. The identity of the buyer will likely remain a closely guarded secret for reasons we can only guess at.
More detail of this outstanding artwork is below, as well as another fine work along the same lines. See here for an interview with the great artist explaining the work. Here is an English language report on the auction.
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