Tezuka Productions is auctioning off “From the Fragments of Tezuka Osamu”, the digital NFT art project based on numerous manga manuscripts belonging to renowned manga artist Tezuka Osamu. The first series of the digital art NFT project, “Astro Boy” will be auctioned and sold from December 13, 2021, until December 20, 2021. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to charity.
Tezuka Osamu was a pioneer who established the base of manga now known as one of the most influential pop cultures. In 1946, Tezuka made a debut as a manga artist though he had a medical degree. He continued to create manga works throughout his life to establish the realm of so-called Story Manga in postwar Japan.
Furthermore, he conveyed his thoughts for universal but serious themes, such as the importance of life, warnings on the destruction of nature, and criticisms against war, to the readers by means of manga, as an accessible and easy way to the public. He was also a productive manga artist. Throughout his career, he drew 150,000 sheets of manuscripts for 700 manga titles. Such his works are still appealing to a lot of his fans, who nicknamed him the “god of manga,” or the “godfather of anime.”
double jump.tokyo, a company that supports NFT businesses using blockchain technology, is partnering with Tezuka Productions to digitize Tezuka’s original artworks on the blockchain to be sold as the official NFTs. The project consists of two categories, “Mosaic Art NFT” and “Generative Art NFT”, both in the motif of Tezuka Osamu’s representative works.
The “Astro Boy” Mosaic Art NFT
The first item on sale in the series is the “Astro Boy” digital mosaic art NFT. Over 4000 sheets of black and white manuscripts excerpt from ‘Manga: Astro Boy” were used to form Astro Boy as the motif. All manuscripts were cut into more than 40,000 fragments, and over 6000 of them were placed as mosaic materials. The tone of the character was set based on the original colors of the magazine pages used then.
To realize the original tone, the engineers manually adjusted the tone piece by piece. Literally, this art piece can be enjoyed in various ways. Seen from a distance, it appeals to the audience as a powerful integrated picture. Seen up close, each tiny piece gives off Tezuka’s exceptional enthusiasm for manga creation. This is one and only one art piece in the world. Only the owner can experience the overwhelming world of Tezuka Osamu.
Generative Art NFT
Also on sale is Generative Art NFT created based on the image materials used in Mosaic Art NFT. Each artwork consists of the following image materials.
Large:
- 5 images carefully selected from color manuscripts of the target title
- 1 image placed randomly for each artwork
Medium:
- More than 900 images carefully selected from color manuscripts of Osamu Tezuka’s works other than the target title.
- 4 images placed randomly for each artwork.
Small:
- 3,200 images carefully selected from fragments of black-and-white manuscripts of the target title.
- 32 images placed randomly for each artwork.
- 4 colors replicating the original image of the magazine series applied
Each target title contains 1,050 pieces, with 1,000 pieces up for sale while the remaining 50 are exploited for marketing and other purposes. The pieces not purchased during the sales period will not be sold again.
Both the “Astro Boy” and “Generative Art” NFT pieces will be made available for sale on OpenSea as per the schedule below:
The “Astro Boy” Mosaic Art NFT
Sales Format: English Auction
Auction site: OpenSea
Period (UTC): From Wednesday, December 15, 2021 3:00 AM (UTC) to Saturday, December 18, 2021 3:00 AM (UTC).
Number of items to be sold: 1
Head over to the OpenSea (link) to bid on this masterpiece. This is the only art piece available in the world.
Generative Art NFT
Sales format: Fixed price sales
Sales location: Official website
Period (UTC): From Monday, December 13, 2021, 3:00 AM (UTC) to December 20, 2021, 3:00 AM (UTC).
Number of items to be sold: 1,000
Scheduled sales price: 0.08 ETH
So visit their website to grab yours before it’s too late: https://tezuka-art.nftplus.io/
Follow the sales updates on their official Twitter: https://twitter.com/tezuka_art_nft