For a long time, Japan exported anime without giving much thought to its future as cultural heritage. Series and films were produced. Merchandise was sold. Production drawings, cels, dougas and working documents were first and foremost part of an industrial process: making the next episode, meeting deadlines, keeping up with demand. What seems almost unbelievable today is that, at the time, there was little to suggest that Japanese animation would become one of the most influential cultural forms in the world.
Sommaire
- When anime became global heritage
- A memory that was never meant to be preserved
- How the archives left the studios
- Japan is gradually realizing what it risks losing
- Have collectors become the unintended guardians of this memory?
- The challenge is already beginning again with digital production
- Conclusion
The figures alone tell the story of this transformation. In 2024, the anime market reached 3,840.7 billion yen, according to the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA). For the first time in its history, international revenue far exceeded domestic revenue. Japanese animation is no longer simply a cultural industry. It has become a global heritage, studied in universities, shown in museums and used by Japan itself as a tool of soft power.
And yet, part of this memory is not held by public institutions or museums. Quite the opposite. These pieces are scattered across a far more fragmented space: private archives, specialist sales, personal collections, sometimes very far from Japan.
This situation raises a question that is both fascinating and revealing: how did a culture that has become one of the symbols of Japan’s global influence allow part of its material traces to leave the studios before they were even fully recognized as heritage?
When anime became global heritage
The history of Japanese animation is often told through its most famous works. But when we look at its evolution over several decades, what stands out is not only the success of certain series. It is the way the entire medium has gradually been reappraised.
Pendant longtemps, l’animation occupait une place un peu étrange. Elle générait des audiences importantes, vendait des jouets, remplissait les grilles de programmes tv et participait pleinement à l’économie du divertissement. Mais elle n’était pas considérée comme un patrimoine culturel à préserver au même titre que le cinéma, la littérature ou les arts traditionnels par exemple.
That perception changed gradually as anime moved beyond Japan’s borders. Goldorak, Dragon Ball, Saint Seiya, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, Evangelion, Naruto and the films of Studio Ghibli all helped create a rare phenomenon: a culture produced in Japan but embraced far beyond the country itself. Anime was no longer only watched. It was studied, analyzed, collected, exhibited and passed on. Universities began researching its history, exhibitions drew thousands of visitors, concerts sold out, and places associated with certain works even became tourist destinations.
What was once considered popular entertainment gradually became part of Japan’s cultural influence. The government itself eventually acknowledged this reality through the Cool Japan strategy. In its documents, anime, manga and video games are presented as strategic industries, able to generate economic, tourism and diplomatic value. But those same documents also point to another issue: preserving works, production materials and the physical traces of this culture. For collectors, this is an important signal. What we preserve is not merely an accumulation of objects. Sometimes, it is a fragile part of the memory of Japanese animation.
Animation is no longer only a successful industry. It has become a strategic cultural asset, capable of shaping the country’s image abroad.
This recognition still raises a question: what happens to the material memory of an industry when that industry gradually becomes cultural heritage?
A memory that was never meant to be preserved
To understand the current situation, we need to return to the way anime was produced.
Today, a Dragon Ball cel or a Saint Seiya douga can be displayed behind glass, studied by researchers or sought after by collectors around the world. And yet these objects were never created for that purpose. Their original function was technical. A douga helped prepare the animation. A genga defined a movement. A cel was used to create an image that would appear on screen for a few seconds. That was all.
In an industry working under constant pressure, systematically keeping every element required storage space and, above all, created costs. Studios had to produce quickly, store thousands of sheets of paper, manage limited space and deal with economic constraints far removed from heritage concerns. Once these materials had served their purpose, their future became more than secondary.
With hindsight, this situation seems surprising. But in the context of the time, it was perfectly logical. No one naturally assumes that a document created to produce a television episode will become, several decades later, an object for collecting, museum display or academic study.
And it is this gap that explains much of what follows.
How the archives left the studios
When we come across production drawings in a private collection today, the first reaction is often to wonder how they managed to leave their original studio. At least, that was the first question I asked myself.
When you think about it, there is nothing especially extraordinary about it. The materials followed the transformations of the industry itself. Some were kept by members of production teams, while others were sold, given away or recovered during moves. Some studios also closed. Sometimes it was simply a matter of lacking space. Others saw no reason to keep thousands of intermediate documents decades after they had been used.
The idea that every important drawing should immediately have gone to a heritage institution is a retrospective one. In most cases, those institutions either did not yet exist or did not consider animation a priority field.
Meanwhile, a market was beginning to develop quietly. Collectors were taking an interest in cels, enthusiasts were documenting works, and communities were exchanging information about animators, studios and production materials. Long before the idea of anime heritage entered public discussion, certain individuals had already begun preserving what they saw as important witnesses to the history of animation.
This reality forces us to recognize that the memory of Japanese animation was not built only within institutions. Part of that memory survived through far more informal channels.
Japan is gradually realizing what it risks losing
As the cultural importance of animation becomes more evident, preservation initiatives are multiplying.
The Media Arts Database is one of the most visible examples of this shift. Its purpose is to document and make accessible information related to manga, anime, video games and other forms of media arts. Through this initiative, Japan is trying to map part of its cultural production and prevent certain knowledge from being lost.
Other initiatives go even further. Anime Tokyo Station preserves and exhibits materials related to anime production. The Anime Tokusatsu Archive Centre (ATAC) works to preserve documents often seen as secondary, yet essential to understanding how works were made. Several universities, including Niigata University, are also developing research and archiving programs dedicated to Japanese animation.
These projects point to an important shift. The issue is no longer only to preserve finished works, whether famous or not. It is also necessary to preserve the traces of their creation. This distinction is fundamental. Preserving a film or an episode allows a work to be passed on. Preserving production materials allows us to understand how that work came into being.
The two approaches are complementary, but they do not answer the same questions at all.
Have collectors become the unintended guardians of this memory?
For several years now, I have often found myself asking the same question when looking at certain pieces in my collection: why is this object here, in my home, in my hands? How and why did this drawing make its way to me? Why is it not kept in a dedicated institution? How did it even leave Japan?
These questions are not only about an object’s value. They are first and foremost about its journey. A collector does not simply buy a rare piece. Sometimes, they take custody of a fragment of a much larger story. A story that begins in an animation studio, passes through several intermediaries and ends up in an environment entirely different from the one for which it was created.
Of course, this does not mean that collectors replace museums. Nor does it mean that they are necessarily the best placed to carry out this mission. But it is becoming difficult to ignore the importance of their role in preserving part of this memory.
Some archives survived because enthusiasts chose to preserve them. Information was documented because communities took the time to understand and identify it. Many works are better understood today thanks to collective efforts carried out outside traditional institutions.
So perhaps the point is not to set collectors and institutions against each other. It is to understand how these two worlds could work together to preserve a memory that has become too important to depend on a single actor.
The challenge is already beginning again with digital production
Just as Japan is trying to better preserve materials linked to traditional animation, a new challenge is emerging.
The industry is now largely digital. Files are gradually replacing physical supports, and today part of the creative process takes place through software, servers and storage spaces that did not exist a few decades ago.
This evolution solves some problems. But it also creates others.
A cel can deteriorate through vinegar syndrome, become damaged or be lost. But a digital file can disappear just as permanently if no preservation strategy is in place. Formats change, software quickly becomes obsolete, and certain stages of production may become inaccessible far sooner than we imagine.
This is one reason why initiatives such as e-Sakuga play an important role. They help document certain stages of production, make rarely accessible materials visible to the public and remind us that the memory of a work is not limited to its final result.
The risk is repeating the same mistakes as in the past by assuming that today’s production tools will have no value tomorrow. The history of Japanese animation shows precisely the opposite.
Conclusion
Japan has begun to recognize animation as cultural heritage. Museums, databases and public programs are multiplying. And yet, an important part of this memory remains scattered across private collections around the world.
This situation is not the result of a single act of neglect or forgetfulness. It is the consequence of a much deeper transformation: that of an industry that was not designed to be preserved, and that gradually became global heritage.
Will the preservation of Japanese animation rely only on institutions, or will we need to imagine new forms of collaboration between studios, researchers, museums and collectors?
As traditional archives disappear and digital productions multiply, this question is probably becoming more important than ever.
I believe that we, as collectors, also have a role to play: to preserve, share and collaborate so that these pieces survive time and oblivion, and do not become mere market objects, but remain witnesses to the history of Japanese animation.
Sources and resources
This article draws in particular on the work of the Association of Japanese Animations (AJA), the Media Arts Database, Anime Tokyo Station, the Anime Tokusatsu Archive Centre (ATAC), Niigata University and e-Sakuga, as well as several publications devoted to the preservation of Japanese animation heritage.
Secondary sources
National Film Archive of Japan
Japanese Animated Film Classics Project
Suginami Animation Museum
Article produced by imacollector® — an editorial archive dedicated to the memory and heritage of Japanese pop culture.
Content published for informational and documentary purposes. All rights reserved to the respective rights holders.
