Knights, Armour and Samurai + Animation Art Selection, auction, on June 28th, 2026 in Paris

Terms of sale

KNIGHTS, ARMOUR & SAMURAI Lots 1–137 — Sunday 28 June 2026, 3.00 pm, Paris There is a paradox at the heart of this auction. Whilst the West has long fantasised about the samurai — his detachment, his blade, his philosophy of committing one’s body to the very end — Japanese creators have, since the 1960s, developed a symmetrical and equally intense fascination with the European knight. In Japanese animation culture, armour is not a military object. It is a moral symbol. It signifies the nobility, rank and ethical code of the wearer even before they speak or fight. This is the story told, each in its own way, by the 137 lots brought together in this auction. The origins The oldest celluloid presented here dates from 1960. It comes from the original production of Tetsujin 28-go (lot 136, Matsuzaki Productions) — the first giant robot in the history of Japanese animation, a figure of armour in its most literal sense: a metal machine remotely controlled by a child, whose colossal power only makes sense in alliance with the human who guides it. This cell is the birth certificate of an entire genre. The same decade saw the emergence of two other seminal works featured in this sale. Osamu Tezuka’s *Dororo* (Mushi Production, 1969, lots 96–98) is perhaps its creator’s darkest and most poignant work: a child born without limbs or organs, sold to demons by his father in exchange for power, who reclaims his body piece by piece by slaying them. *Kamui Gaiden* (TMS Entertainment, 1969, lot 99) plunges into feudal Japan to follow a ninja on the run, betrayed by all the clans. These two series immediately establish darkness as a defining feature of the warrior narrative in Japanese animation. The 1970s–1980s: the meeting of two worlds It was in the 1970s that Japanese animation began to embrace the European warrior. Researchers Clément and Louis De Vasselot de Régné have shown that this mutual fascination is one of the most remarkable cultural phenomena of the period. Tezuka’s *Princess Knight* (Mushi Production, 1967–1968, lot 91) is the first anime set in a resolutely European world — a princess in armour in a fantastical kingdom. *King Arthur* (Toei Animation, 1979, lot 89) adapts the Arthurian legend into an animated film. *Rody the Little Cid* (Nippon Animation, 1980, lot 90) adapts the work of the Spanish playwright Guillén de Castro and imprints Iberian chivalry on the collective imagination of an entire generation of Japanese television viewers. These series were watched, during their childhood, by the writers and directors who would go on to create the great works of the following decades. The connection is direct. *Saint Seiya* (Toei Animation, 1986–1989, lots 1–50) is the most striking example of this: more than fifty lots in this auction, including gouache-painted cels on original backgrounds and coloured pencil dôgas, constitute the most comprehensive collection of this series ever offered at a French public auction. Masami Kurumada constructed a cosmology of inner struggle drawing on Greek mythology, Buddhist philosophy and the martial arts tradition — whilst Shingo Araki devised an aesthetic of armour with geometric, reflective surfaces, the influence of which on the global animation industry is still felt today. *The Rose of Versailles* (TMS, 1979, lots 94–95) and *The Samurai of Eternity* (Sunrise, 1988–1989, lots 116–120) round off this overview. The latter series features five contemporary warriors clad in mystical armour linked to Confucian virtues — justice, wisdom, filial piety, sincerity and benevolence — in a series that left a lasting impression on French audiences and remains, in both Japan and France, one of the most beloved works of that decade. The 1990s–2000s: the age of maturity The following decade produced the most radical works. Berserk (OLM, 1997–1998, lot 65) adapts Kentarô Miura’s manga into a medieval dark fantasy structured like a classical tragedy. The dôga of Guts featured in this sale depicts him in his defining pose — standing, armed, alone against something greater than himself — which is also the defining pose of the entire work. Rurouni Kenshin (Studio Gallop / Studio Deen, 1996–1998, lots 100–102) — a franchise that has sold over 70 million copies — places its hero at the end of the Meiji era with a sword whose blade is blunted: a former assassin who has chosen never to kill again, yet cannot stop fighting. Three original cels, including one with a matching painted background (lot 101) and one depicting Kenshin Himura facing Shogo Amakusa against a printed background (lot 102). *Space Adventure Cobra* (TMS, 1982, lots 131–132) deserves a special mention. Buichi Terasawa’s series is not a warrior series — it is a picaresque space opera in which humour and desire feature just as prominently as combat. But the character of Armanoïde, of whom a dôga and a celluloid are featured in this sale, represents one of the most surprising reinterpretations of armour in the entire history of Japanese animation: a futuristic breastplate worn like a second skin, which does not protect but reveals, transforming combat gear into a symbol of erotic power. The armour no longer hides anything — it conveys something else entirely. This is perhaps the clearest demonstration that, in Japanese animation, armour has always been a form of expression before it was an object. Bleach (Studio Pierrot, 2004–2024, lots 112–115), Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (Madhouse, 2000, lot 130) and the Beast Wars series (Ashi Productions, 1998–1999, lots 123–129) round off this period: the shinigami in spiritual armour, the hunter of on horseback in a post-apocalyptic world, and the Transformers, whose armour is their very bodies. The 2010s–2020s: a return to rigour Kingdom (Pierrot / Studio Signpost, 2012–present, lots 66–88) brings the cycle full circle with a different ambition: twenty-two lots, dôgas covering all the main characters in a series that reconstructs China during the Warring States period in the 3rd century BCE with the rigour of a treatise on military strategy. Charismatic generals, female warriors, and large-scale battles where the clarity of the composition never succumbs to the sheer scale of the subject. Black Clover (Studio Pierrot, 2017–2021, lots 57–61) serves as a reminder that the legacy of chivalric fantasy is very much alive: five lots centred on Asta, a child without magic in a world where magic defines everything, whose anti-magic blades make him a complete outsider in the very universe they inhabit. The series follows directly in the tradition of what researchers have termed Japanese neo-medieval fantasy — a genre that has won over a global audience by reinterpreting the chivalric imagination through the lens of otaku culture. These celluloid sheets and dôgas were produced by hand, frame by frame, by teams of animators whose craft, as they practised it, no longer exists. The digital transition of the 1990s and 2000s brought an end to this way of working. Painting the reflections of bronze armour in gouache on transparent celluloid, sketching the expression of a Chinese general in coloured pencil at the moment he realises he is about to lose the battle, drawing the silhouette of a giant robot in motion on a sheet of tracing paper: these are artisanal techniques repeated thousands of times which, collectively, produced one of the most influential visual traditions of the 20th century. To collect one of these pieces is to own a fragment of that history.

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Live June 28th, 2026 at 3:00 PM 75014 Paris - France

Live

June 28th, 2026 at 3:00 PM

75014 Paris - France