青幻舎 SEIGENSHA Art Publishing

Sanai Masafumi published his first photo collection, Ikiteiru (Alive), from Seigensha in April 1997. The images—neither dramatic nor personally revealing, yet arrestingly different nonetheless—garnered extraordinary acclaim, bringing Sanai into the public eye as an exciting new talent. Their impact inspired the next generation of photographers and engendered new creative trends; the book’s appearance is still remembered today as an epochal milestone in Japanese photography.

Ikiteiru was reprinted several times before the stock used for the pages was discontinued, precluding the production of further copies. It fell out of availability following the last print run in 2007.

Then, as Seigensha was approaching its October 2025 thirtieth anniversary, the company launched a commemorative project to bring back some of its out-of-print titles. Readers were asked to send in their requests, and thanks to their endorsement Ikiteiru was selected for revival.

This revival got a boost when—after repeated tests supervised by Machiguchi Satoshi, the designer behind the original book—a new stock comparable to the old one was finally identified. In fidelity to the original, the images were transferred to plates via film and printed in oil-based ink; the cover, meanwhile, was updated so as to give the reborn edition a fresh new look.

The return of this classic adds another new page to the story of photography, twenty-nine years after its initial publication.

Each copy is packaged in plastic with a same-sized poster of the original-edition cover image.

Photographer Sanai Masafumi published his first collection, Ikiteiru (Alive), from Seigensha in 1997 and received the Kimura Ihei Award for Map in 2003. In 2008 he began publishing his photo collections through his own label, Taisho (Contrast); his latest book, Raisha (Thunder Photographing), was issued in March 2026 in conjunction with an exhibition of the same name at the Okamoto Taro Memorial Museum in Tokyo. Other recent publications include Strong Memory (2025), The Photo, Coming Home (2024), and Shizuokashi (Shizuoka Poetry, 2023); major exhibitions, Strong Memory (book obscura, Tokyo, 2025), Tentaishow Part 2 (Vacant, Tokyo, 2025), The Photo, Coming Home (book obscura, Tokyo, 2024), Shizuokashi (Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo, 2023; Shizuoka City Museum of Art, 2023), and Taisho: Photography by Sanai Masafumi (Taro Okamoto Museum of Art, Kawasaki, 2009).