Tsunagu
Where worlds meet.
異なる世界がつながる場所。
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The As-Obi x Tsunagu collection looks back to Japan's 1960s–1990s — decades of abundance when animation rose to mass popularity and traditional craft reached new heights of luxury.
Anime Cels
Vintage collector edition prints
— from Japan’s hand-drawn animation era.
The animation prints in this collection were issued by Japanese studios between the 1960s and 1990s, during the height of the hand-painted animation era.
Unlike production cels, which were used directly in broadcast, these prints were created as collectible artworks—selected, reproduced, and released in limited quantities for early animation enthusiasts and collectors.
Each print captures a key moment from a series, preserving the color palettes, linework, and stylistic language that defined Japan’s animation golden age.
Printed from original cel artwork or master references, they offer a faithful record of the hand-drawn method at a time when character design, painting, and photography were done by skilled specialists working frame by frame.
These prints were often available only through events, exhibitions, or short-run studio releases, making surviving examples increasingly rare. Their production declined as digital methods replaced hand-painted cels and the materials, techniques, and workflows that supported cel-based animation disappeared entirely in the early 2000s.
Today, these vintage animation prints endure as cultural artifacts—preserving the images and processes that shaped a generation.
Obi
Handwoven silk textile
—created during Japan's era of peak textile luxury.
The word "obi" (帯) literally means "belt" or "sash" in Japanese. The obi in this collection were woven in Kyoto during the 1960s–1990s, continuing a tradition that traces back to the 5th century.
These textiles use a "pre-dyeing" technique — coloring silk threads before weaving to create sharp, dimensional patterns. Combined with metallic gold and silver threads, this produces shifting light effects that change with movement. The weaving process required control of hundreds of individual threads on traditional looms, demanding years of apprenticeship to master.
Each obi was woven for a specific purpose and wearer, with master weavers translating seasonal motifs, family crests, or abstract geometries into woven form.
By the 1960s–1990s, these textiles had evolved into commissioned art pieces — often created for single ceremonial occasions, then carefully preserved as family treasures.
This era represented a peak in both technical capability and economic means.
Today, neither the circumstances that enabled such devotion to craft, nor the complete mastery of these techniques, exist in quite the same form.
Together, they stage a dialogue between popular culture and refined tradition — both expressions of an age when time and resources allowed for unmatched creativity.
Each work is a one-time encounter,
a fragment of that specific age, possible only once.
The collection is presented by ITONIKA under JAPAN ART BANK run by Kanako Yamamoto — specialists in collecting and preserving Japanese art and design —
and conceived with DeepDip Creative Agency, the curator of As-Obi project, whose curatorial direction and visual storytelling bring contemporary resonance to timeless craft.
We partner with curated galleries, design stores, and cultural centers that share our appreciation for authentic artifacts and modern art.