Why do people insist on breaking up douga sets
and selling the sketches individually. To ask $50
for a single douga sketch is just ridiculous. Not
only that, apparantly the seller doesn't know the
difference between a genga and a douga, and pointing
that out to them will do no good, cause they still
won't change the discription.
I feel generally disheartened when people split up sketch sets.
There was a private individual who got some BGC douga sets from Y!J last year and decided to sell every sheet separately on Ebay. I don't like seeing the splitting up of sets like that, especially when they were bought in a set (and in this case, kept together for twenty years only to be split up at the end of it).
I know people have the right to split up sets like that but it doesn't make it less painful to watch when it happens.
Wow! I really didn't think anyone else was left who cared about this... I also hate seeing sketch sets split up. Though I don't mind if someone sells the set of genga separate from the set of douga for a sequence, the people that split up sets into individual pages drive me crazy.
For online auctions, I'm much less likely to bid in a situation like that, since I prefer to have WHOLE sets when I can.... With no sure chance of winning ALL the pages, I usually bid on none of them. When dealers split up sets like that, if I do order, I frequently put a condition on my order: "I want X, Y, and Z, but only if ALL are available."
Absolutely agree with everyone’s sentiments here. I know we have no right to feel it, but it's really sad to see a set get split, especially after so many years being together!! It always feels soo much more complete when you can reanimate the scene!
While I agree with everyone's sentiments, I think that in some cases splitting sets can be excusable. My examples below probably are not applicable to the Naruto sketches for sale, but I don't know since I never saw past episode 120.
Example: if a group of people purchase a sketch set together and agree to split it. It makes owning particular artwork affordable for all involved, rather than having a single collector both bear the burden of purchase, but also be the only one able to own artwork from a particularly desirable scene.
People very rarely complain about cel sequences being split up and sold separately. Why should someone be denied access to owning a piece of a pivotal moment simply because they couldn't afford to plunk down $1k for the whole shebang?
I know that many of the sketches in my collection are 'stand alone' pieces that were separated from their sequence by an owner who wished to (1) recoup a little of the money they spent (2) spread the joy of ownership to others
As with Rei, I agree with the sentiments and like to keep intact douga sets (and genga sets too). But the problem comes up when a series is popular and so there's ample demand for original sketchwork, especially for major characters. Chobits art was routinely split up and sold individually when this series was popular, and likewise the available art for Fruits Basket. Even with Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, complete sketch sets were divided up, with the gengas going one way, the roughs another, the layouts still another, and dougas flying everywhere.
It's a low-end market, in my opinion, the same that would be willing to buy a douga without its matching cel (which I've also seen done). In my opinion, it's the same market that goes for alleged Miro, Chagall, and Dali "lithographs" rather than waiting and paying for even modest but original works of art by these creators. (And don't get me going again on Thomas Kinkaid, one of whose galleries I passed last week in Dublin.)
But it is a market, and one whose participants are willing to pony up modest sums of money for something that is, after all, a one-of-a-kind image that was actually used to make the anime one admires. And perhaps the love such a buyer feels for this single image is, in its way, as true as that I show when I put my complete douga sets away in their black archival boxes and sit on them.
I can't say anything about the breaking up of sets, because 1.) I've done it myself and 2.) I've gained a few items I REALLY wanted because a collector was willing to do so.
I do agree however with the mis labeling them "genga" as well as with the price. Now if it actually was the genga it would be a different case. It's a bit annoying that they didn't change the listing even after the mistake was pointed out, makes the product a bit misleading.
I've gotten some really nice douga sketches that I would never had gotten if the sellers didn't break up the set. I've gotten some of Crackpots and love them!
I know other collectors who have the sketch sequence mates!!! And I think having sequence mates is really nice also!
I don't think it's that bad....
But really I think alot of Big Cel and Sketch vendors break up douga sets for sale.
I know Anime Museum broke up genga and douga's during the RahXephon craze.
My personal take is that if you buy a set for $100 then it is wrong and greedy to sell each piece individually for $50. On the other hand, if you buy a 10 piece set for $100 and sell what you don't want for $10 each, that is a lot more fair.
I strongly prefer to buy sets, and would never split them up. I've paid out-the-nose to put some sets back together.
(but that's just my not-so-little obsession)
I'm sentimental so I hate seeing any sort of sketch sets separated. And it makes more sense to appreciate the sketches as a whole because you can see the entire production process better, esp if they come with timesheets!
I most definitely agree. On the one hand I do understand how if you break up a bunch of dougas that everyone gets a piece of that original artwork. There was a sketch set early on in my dbz days that I was willing to pay $100 for just because I really liked the scene (unheard of back then for a seemingly common scene) . I pleaded with the seller. They didn't want to sell but almost out of pity, they sold me one of the sheets for a few bucks. Needless to say I was thrilled.
On the other hand, once you break up a set, it's gone forever. Maybe some people just don't care but I think that's kind of sad. And if somebody's doing that purely to grab as much money as they can, there just seems something kind of icky about that.
**RUNS** - Leaps and tackles Mightymask to the ground
and starts to rip off his clo......
erm ehem!! Sorry, lost my train of thought!!
I am glad to see that other agree with me!! While
I can understand that its nice to own a piece of
artwork, I have to agree with MM that once you
do that, the scene is lost for good.
For the times I bid on something, it ended up going above my range and I never seen anything from it again, I kind of wish the seller HAD broken up the set.
But this has only happened to me a couple times so I can't say for sure how I'd react if this happened to me more often. Some set breakups I've seen felt more troublesome than others. The cheaper the price of the full set, the more annoying it feels to me.
To ask $50
I've gotten some of Crackpots and love them!
And I think having sequence mates is really nice also!
