Danica Davidson
October 3, 2024 
The Agency for Cultural Affairs, which is a section of the Japanese government’s larger Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, is interested in putting anime and manga art materials in an official national archive.
When we say materials, the archive would mostly be interested in anime cels as well as artists’ original manga drawings. It’s possible the archive might expand out into video game and tokusatsu items, too, but that has yet to be decided.
The Agency for Cultural Affairs talked about this archive idea publicly on September 30, and with them were Hideaki Anno, the creator of the Evangelion series, plus mangaka Machiko Satonaka, who was previously given the Person of Cultural Merit honor.
A lot is still up in the air about the archive. There is talk of locating it in the Sagamihara Branch of the National Film Archive. They’re also hoping that the archive can be up and running within six years. They did make it clear that any people working with these materials will be trained on how to take care of them.
The archive is meant to preserve anime and manga, and it’s also meant to be a tool to spread awareness on these art forms. In that case, the archive would be working with other institutions in Japan, as well as ones in other countries.
One big question is how the archive will get the supplies it wants. Plenty of people can donate original manga drawings and anime cels, but the truth is that a lot of anime cels have been destroyed over the years. Reports exist of truckloads of anime cels being dropped off at the dump, back before anime was as popular. At that time people didn’t want the cels and they were just taking up space. Now some anime cels can be worth a lot of money.
Source: SoraNews24
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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