Last year, animated TV show ¡°The Simpsons¡± spoofed the films of director Hayao Miyazaki. This spring, bootleg Bart Simpson T-shirts line the boutiques of Harajuku.

There¡¯s a weird symbiosis between Japanese pop culture and America¡¯s longest-running TV family, a force strong enough to attract more than 500 artists to the ¡°Bartkira¡± project.

¡°Bartkira,¡± an online art initiative, launched in 2013 with the aim of redrawing all 2,146 pages of Katsuhiro Otomo¡¯s post-apocalyptic manga ¡°Akira¡± using characters from ¡°The Simpsons.¡± Bart becomes brash gang leader Kaneda, his buddy Milhouse is human experiment Tetsuo, and the boys¡¯ skateboards replace the futuristic motorcycles from the manga. Somehow it all works, lashed together by the same strange logic that keeps the 1990s cohesive in retrospect.

Now Neo-Springfield is coming to Tokyo thanks to James Stacey, owner of Yokohama-based art and comic publisher Black Hook Press, who organized an upcoming exhibition of the work of a handful of ¡°Bartkira¡± artists. It sounds like a lawsuit in the making, but Stacey explains when he contacted ¡°Akira¡± copyright holder Kodansha, ¡°they didn¡¯t want to help, but they also didn¡¯t threaten with legal action, so we decided to go ahead.¡± Given Japan¡¯s murky stance on copyright, tacit approval can be the best kind.

Donations and profits from the event will go to Naka-Kon, a Tohoku tsunami relief fund for Otomo¡¯s home prefecture, Miyagi, and Save The Children, a charity championed by ¡°The Simpsons¡± co-creator Sam Simon. DJs at the March 8 opening party will take donations to spin your favorite 1980s jams, while importer Angenna America will serve craft beer.

The ¡°Bartkira¡± event is one of more than 80 exhibitions taking place during the Asagaya Art Street town fair. Stacey hopes visitors can ¡°share some of the community spirit enthusiasm that is ¡®Bartkira.¡¯ ¡±

¡°Bartkira in Tokyo¡± takes place at Gallery Hakusen in Suginami-ku, Tokyo, from March 7 to 21. For more information, visit or .