A circle of friends connected by goo touch! The “FIST BUMP” corner of the radio program “GRAND MARQUEE” features people who live and enjoy Tokyo in a relay format.
On October 16, costume designer Tsuyoshi Takahashi will appear. We talked mainly about how he started collecting “AKIRA” T-shirts, the types of items in his collection, and his work as a costume designer.
INDEX
Collecting official “AKIRA” T-shirts
Celeina (MC): First up for the week is this person, recommended by the program. He is a collector of “AKIRA” T-shirts and a costume designer, Tsuyoshi Takahashi. Please give him my best regards.
Takano (MC): Mr. Takahashi came to the studio today wearing an “AKIRA” T-shirt, what kind of selection was it?
Takahashi: The international edition of “AKIRA” was published in 1990 or so, and this is a gift one that only those who won the prize at that time could have.
Takano: It is very rare.
Celeina: It is designed as a panel of a comic book, and English is written in a speech balloon.
Takano: I’m also wondering how you get them. You brought a lot of T-shirts, and the studio looks amazing.
Celeina: Do you have a favorite among these?
Takahashi：My particular favorite is a sweatshirt, but it says “Atelier Morita” on the tag. It’s the kind of thing that only the winners of a sweepstakes when “AKIRA” was serialized in “Young Magazine” at the time could have. This one has value in my opinion, but that one is more valuable in the market, and the price is very high.
Celeina：This T-shirt has a green body.
Takahashi：It’s printed all over. This is a T-shirt that was sold, but it is only available in size XL, so it is very popular overseas. The price went up, and at one point it was around 500,000 yen.
Celeina：It has prints all over it from the neck to the shoulders. T-shirts are packed securely in plastic, with silica gel inside as well.
Takahashi: Humidity is my worst enemy.
Takano: Your house is even more amazing, isn’t it?
Takahashi: Yes, it is. I have a special shelf, and all these packed items are crammed in there.
Takano: How many do you have?
Takahashi: I haven’t counted them properly, but probably about 200 in total.
Takano: All of them are “AKIRA”. That’s amazing.
Celeina: And of all the T-shirts, the ones you collect are official ones.
Takahashi: That’s right. I like to collect T-shirts that I won in the sweepstakes I mentioned earlier, or the “AKIRA” T-shirts that were published by Kodansha and drawn by Katsuhiro Otomo, the manga artist, not the anime artist. But there are more T-shirts of the anime version of the movie out there in greater numbers.
Takano: How many are officially available?
Takahashi: I can’t count them properly, but I think there are probably about 70 types. The ones from Kodansha are probably less than 30.
Takano: Have you already completed all the official ones?
Takahashi: No, there are only two left. I found some old clippings from “Young Magazine” and other magazines on Yahoo Auctions a long time ago, and I was able to take them over. I was looking through them and found information about the trainer, but I had never seen it before.
Celeina: It says “trainer present” on the clipping.
Takano: You thought this should be somewhere.
Takahashi: It must be somewhere, but I’ve never seen it anywhere, even at various auctions, so I’ve almost given up on it.
Celeina: If the age of the clipping is a bit old, you can only get information from magazines, not SNS, so clippings are an important source of information.
Takano: There may be people who listen to J-WAVE who know some information.
Celeina: Is it a light blue print on a white background?
Takahashi: Yes, it is.
Takano: If you have it as a gift or if you know some information about it.
