New Studio Ghibli Uniqlo T-shirt line coming to the U.S., Japan left out once again【Photos】
Uniqlo has announced some pretty big-name collaborations with the anime/manga world this summer, including new partnerships with Pokémon and Ai Yazawa. But the casual clothing chain isn't done adding anime flare to fans' wardrobes yet, as they've now announced a brand-new line of Studio Ghibli apparel.
However, as has become oddly the norm for Uniqlo Ghibli collections, once again these items won't be offered in Japan. Instead, they appear to be exclusive (at least for now) to Uniqlo U.S.A.
As with the previous Uniqlo Ghibli items, these designs were created by Thai artist Kanyada Phatan, who contributes photography and poetry to Neppu, a monthly magazine published by Studio Ghibli.
The new collection consists of both short-sleeved T-shirts and long-sleeved sweatshirts, featuring characters from eight Ghibli anime films, including, of course, My Neighbor Totoro, with the Catbus hanging out near the nape of your neck on this shirt.
While some of the designs take their illustrations directly from their source anime, others are original creations, like on the Totoro sweatshirt, which has some Soot Sprites congregating near the left cuff.
The Howl's Moving Castle design uses pretty much the entire front of the shirt as a canvas for the titular mobile architecture…
…and there's no missing No Face, blazingly emblazoned in triplicate across the front of the Spirited Away sweatshirt, which also bears the film's Japanese title, Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi.
▼ This time there's a Radish Spirit hanging out on the sleeve.
Some of the designs are double-sided, with graphics on both the front and back, like with the Princess Mononoke sweatshirt.
Set in a forest green field on the front is monster princess San, accompanied with raised text of the film's promotional poster tagline in Japan, 'Ikiro' ('Live' or 'Survive').
San appears on the back as well, underneath Ashitaka, with the movie's Japanese-text title, Mononoke-hime, overlapping them.
There's more princess-related attire with the The Tale of the Princess Kaguya T-shirt…
…and another Ghibli anime that doesn't get a lot of merchandising attention, Pom Poko, is here too.
Along with the movie's Japanese title and the kanji character for tanuki (狸), the text on the back identifies the wearer as a member of the human-observing tanuki research team, while the front graphic is, as far as our analysis can tell, the first-ever depiction of testicles on a Uniqlo T-shirt.
▼ Though these are culturally relevant testicles.
A less ballsy option is this Kiki's Delivery Service sweatshirt, which is both dual-sided and bilingual.
Rounding out the single-movie designs, The Boy and the Heron gets two pieces, a T-shirt with the Gray Heron unnervingly saying 'My Dear' on the front while the back reminds you of who made the movie as the scene-stealing Warawara remind you of just how adorable the little marshmallow-like creatures are.
The sweatshirt flips their positions around, with the Warawara on the front and the Gray Heron on the back.
And finally, rounding out the adult-sized collection is an overarching Studio Ghibli T-shirt, with illustrations of Porco Rosso's protagonist, Nausicaa, Ponyo, Castle in the Sky's Dola, and The Wind Rise's Ka-14 aircraft, which would eventually evolve into the Imperial Japanese Navy's World War II Zero fighter plane.
The T-shirts are all priced at US$24.90, and the sweatshirts at US$39.90. The entire collection will be available on July 10 at Uniqlo stores in the U.S. and through the chain's U.S. online shop here.
Source: Uniqlo via Yahoo! Japan News via Game Watch
Top image: Uniqlo
Insert images: Uniqlo (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
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