Gallery Fake


Gallery Fake is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Fujihiko Hosono. It was firstly serialized in Shogakukan's manga magazine Weekly Big Comic Spirits from 1992 to 2005, with its chapters collected in 39 volumes. A two-chapter story and a four-chapter story were published in Weekly Big Comic Spirits in 2012 and 2016, respectively. A new serialization of Gallery Fake began in Big Comic Zōkan in 2017.
A 37-episode anime television series adaptation, animated by TMS Entertainment and Tokyo Kids, was broadcast on TV Tokyo in 2005.
The manga has had over 10 million copies in circulation. In 1996, Gallery Fake received the 41st Shogakukan Manga Award for the general category.

Plot

On a wharf on Tokyo Bay is a small gallery named Gallery Fake. The owner of the gallery, Reiji Fujita, was once a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. He was a learned curator with remarkable memory, keen aesthetic sense, great skill in restoration of paintings and knowledge of many languages, so he was called the "Professor". However, because of trouble in the workplace, Fujita was forced to quit the museum. Now he is an art dealer who sells paintings, authentic and fake alike, sometimes at extraordinary prices, depending on the circumstances or the type of buyer. His motto is "One without aesthetic sense can't help being cheated out of his money. And by being deceived, one may learn to distinguish real ones from the counterfeit."
However, Fujita appreciates art and the artists who spent their lives creating it and does not try to deceive people by passing off fake paintings as genuine ones. He often helps the people he encounters, and other characters are attracted to him in spite of his sometimes gruff manner.

Characters

;Reiji Fujita
;Sara Halifa
;Sayoko Mitamura
;Fei Cui
;Menou
;Carlos
;Ramos
;Max Watson

Media

Manga

Written and illustrated by Fujihiko Hosono, Gallery Fake started in Shogakukan's manga magazine Weekly Big Comic Spirits in the March 2, 1992, issue. The series concluded with 281 chapters on January 31, 2005. The chapters were collected in 32 volumes, released from August 29, 1992, to April 26, 2005. In 2012, Hosono published a two-chapter story in Weekly Big Comic Spirits on October 20 and November 5, as part of the "Heroes Come Back" anthology, which comprised short stories by manga artists to raise funds for recovery of the areas afflicted by the 2011 [Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami]. In 2016, a short-term serialization story was published in Weekly Big Comic Spirits from May 30 to June 20, followed by a one-shot chapter published in Monthly Big Comic Spirits on August 27. A collected 33rd volume was released on November 30 of that same year. A new serialization of Gallery Fake began in on July 14, 2017. As of February 28, 2025, 39 volumes have been released.

Volumes

Anime

Episodes

Reception

The manga has had over 10 million copies in circulation. In 1996, Gallery Fake received the 41st Shogakukan Manga Award for the general category.