What is a hanken mono cel?
The term ‘hanken mono’ means copyrighted object. A hanken cel is a cel that was used for such copyrighted promotional purposes. These were the basis for things such as magazine ads or stories and images on books, shitajiki, trading cards, CDs, DVDs or other goods. While many hanken are very large to accomodate the detail and quality required, they can come in all sizes. The familiar images can become quite valuable. Many hanken have hand-inked lines and are produced with much higher quality than a cel used for animation. However, others might be less detailed and cheaper if they were made for purposes where the detail and quality wasn’t required (used for a very small image in a book or for a cheap set of trading cards).
