AKIRA T-Shirts: The Scene (Part 1) - Exploring the Birth of the "Anime T-Shirt" Craze with a Famous Collector

Welcome to "Aichaku Kaiwai," our new special series where we connect with people who are passionate about fashion and culture. With major collaborations like Gucci x DORAEMON and Loewe x Ghibli, the "fashion meets anime" crossover is now a massive global trend.

At the very beginning of this wave, and still its most iconic example, is "AKIRA" by Katsuhiro Otomo. Some of the original "AKIRA T-shirts" from the 1980s are now rare collector's items fetching over 500,000 yen. For our first installment, we sat down with Tsuyoshi Takahashi—a costume designer, stylist, and one of the world's foremost collectors—to dive into the "AKIRA T-shirt scene."

"I haven't counted them all, but I probably have over 200." The "AKIRA T-shirts" Takahashi brought with him cover the entire floor. How did he amass this collection, currently valued at several million yen?

"The 'AKIRA' manga was serialized in 'Weekly Young Magazine' (Kodansha) from 1982 to 1990, and the animated film was released in 1988. Official items like T-shirts and sweatshirts were being made even back then. There are also licensed T-shirts, collaborations with other brands, and commemorative T-shirts from exhibitions by the creator, Katsuhiro Otomo. I get them mainly through marketplace apps, buying them at thrift stores, and sometimes trading with other collectors."

Takahashi explains, "There's a huge variety of 'AKIRA T-shirts,' and almost all of them are limited editions." If you include homages and bootlegs, it's impossible to track them all down. That's what makes collecting them so rewarding. So, what made Takahashi become a collector?

"When 'AKIRA' was being serialized, I was about 9 to 17 years old. I thought it was a cool series, but back then, my impression was that it was the kind of manga you'd find at the house of an 'older, stylish, subculture-loving guy,' so I felt a bit disconnected from it. I didn't even know the T-shirts existed, and no one around me was wearing them."

Today, "AKIRA T-shirts" are highly sought-after, but back in the 1990s, a "scene" didn't even exist. And it would be about 20 years later, around 2010, that Takahashi would become a collector.

In the late 1990s, Takahashi became a stylist in his 20s. During his early days as a budding stylist, he absorbed all kinds of fashion—from Ura-Harajuku brands to drag queen costumes—and applied it to his work. How did he view "AKIRA T-shirts" back then?

"At the time, I don't think you'd see anyone in the fashion industry wearing them. However, in the early 2000s, I found and bought about three of them at a shop in Nakano Broadway that sold band T-shirts and posters. I think they were about 3,000 yen each? My reaction was just, 'Oh, 'AKIRA'! How nostalgic!'"

His impression was that they were simply character merchandise with a bit of a cultural vibe. But a few years later, an experience would completely flip that perception. At his favorite oden shop in Nakameguro, a part-time staff member was wearing an "AKIRA T-shirt."

"He was... a really strange guy (laughs). He was an unusual staff member who would sell not just oden but also his own homemade hamburgers at the shop without permission. He had a long beard and his clothes were scruffy. But he was this cool guy with an incredibly strong personal style. And there he was, working in an old 'AKIRA T-shirt.'"

According to Takahashi, "the hem was so tattered and worn out that you could see his stomach." The moment he saw that cropped "AKIRA T-shirt," the character merch being sold off cheaply at Nakano Broadway transformed into "fashion" in his mind.

"To him, it was just one of the cheap T-shirts he always wore. But to me, that look was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. That's when I started digging into it myself."

The T-shirt's tag had a mysterious label: "FASHION VICTIM." His collection began by searching auction sites like Yahoo! Auctions and eBay. "I have a personality where I go overboard when I get into something," says Takahashi, who started snapping up everything he could find, from parallel imports to items of unknown origin, and began wearing them in his personal life. Of course, there was no collector community. He cultivated his affection for them all by himself.

Back in 2010, an 'AKIRA T' would go for a few thousand yen on auction sites. Anything over 10,000 yen was considered expensive. What really surprised him, though, was the sheer variety. Who made them, and for what purpose? Driven by curiosity, he spent his days scouring the internet, winning auctions for prints he'd never seen before, and documenting each one.

"I discovered that the 'FASHION VICTIM' tee the guy at the oden spot was wearing was likely a licensed T-shirt released overseas in the mid-1990s. I also found a model with a 'Weekly Young Magazine' tag and even collected the magazine issues from when the manga was being serialized. Inside, I found information on sweepstakes prizes for readers and items you could buy with coupons included in the magazine. The distribution channels were incredibly unique."

He discovered that the prints were diverse, ranging from the covers of the "AKIRA" graphic novels and original illustrations by Katsuhiro Otomo to modified manga panels. The T-shirt bodies themselves also varied, with brands like Jerzees and Fruit of the Loom.

"My absolute favorite is the 'Atelier Morita Original' version, which features manga illustrations by Otomo-sensei. The body is so thin it feels like an undershirt, and for the longest time, I thought it was a bootleg. But it turned out to be from the same manufacturer that made the 'sweepstakes prizes' for Weekly Young Magazine."

Digging up information that nobody else knew—during this period of immersion in the solitary thrill of collecting, Takahashi had an unforgettable experience.

"When I bought an 'Atelier Morita' T-shirt on Yahoo! Auctions, it came with the original envelope addressed to the prize winner. I think the original owner must have kept it all this time. It felt like they were telling me, 'Take good care of this...'"

You could feel the excitement of winning the sweepstakes radiating from the sun-faded envelope. A 'scene' really did exist back then. And finally, the time came for the world to take notice of the 'AKIRA T'.

2017 was a turning point for 'AKIRA T's. The 'AKIRA/Supreme' collaboration, which still commands high prices today, was released. It was a love call from a top fashion brand, but Takahashi says he had mixed feelings.

"Of course, I bought it. It was an official collab with a great design. I was thrilled to see "AKIRA", a work that had once captivated the youth, return to the heart of youth culture. But at the same time, I had a nagging feeling that it would just get swept up in the trend and be consumed by it."

For several years prior, Takahashi had been wearing an 'AKIRA T' almost every day to work and on photoshoots, earning him the nickname 'the stylist with the AKIRA T-shirts.' But everything changed after 2017. Trend-savvy industry insiders all started wearing 'AKIRA T's and professing their love for "AKIRA". It was the birth of the 'AKIRA T scene' that continues to this day, and its momentum was unstoppable.

"The tipping point was the 'AKIRA ART OF WALL"  Otomo Katsuhiro × Kosuke Kawamura AKIRA ART EXHIBITION' event at Shibuya Parco in 2019. Fashion aficionados and influencers flocked to it, and the market prices for older T-shirts skyrocketed, like a jet taking off."

Before he knew it, the 'FASHION VICTIM' T-shirt he'd seen at the oden shop that day had become a super-rare item with a market value in the hundreds of thousands of yen. And just like that, the 'AKIRA T' was resurrected as a vintage culture phenomenon. The craze spread to other franchises like "EVANGELION" and "serial experiments lain", as well as works from Kyoto Animation, sparking a global boom in anime and manga T-shirts.

"This boom, in a way, helped me reaffirm my identity as a collector. I'd get a private thrill out of deliberately wearing the T-shirt from the "Tribute to Otomo Exhibition" , released the same year as the Supreme collab, or rocking the 'Atelier Morita' version that no one was paying attention to yet (laughs)."

Takahashi's journey as a collector, sparked by a solitary passion, continues. In 2020, he launched an Instagram account dedicated to 'AKIRA T's, opening up a dialogue with the international 'scene'—a wild mix of fans, fakers, and flippers.

To be continued—