Artist Brendan Lee Satish Tang created the Manga Ormolu series as an exploration of cultural mixing, blending traditional high art with modern pop. It's meant to reflect on cultural appropriation and assimilation, but with fun, slightly ridiculous results.

Manga Ormolu enters the dialogue on contemporary culture, technology, and globalization through a fabricated relationship between ceramic tradition (using the form of Chinese Ming dynasty vessels) and techno-Pop Art. The futuristic update of the Ming vessels in this series recalls 18th century French gilded ormolu, where historic Chinese vessels were transformed into curiosity pieces for aristocrats. But here, robotic prosthetics inspired by anime (Japanese animation) and manga (the beloved comics and picture novels of Japan) subvert elitism with the accessibility of popular culture.

Manga Ormolu [Brendan Tang via Nerdcore]

This amazing artwork was created by Canadian artist Brendan Tang, who loves to explore the cross-cultural weirdness of Asian pop with his mecha vases.

Find out more about Tang's work, and read his artist statement, on his site. You gotta love a guy who can talk about the history of cultural imperialism and the coolness of manga in the same paragraph.