Anime-Beta TNG

Hello everyone,
I bought not long ago my first VHD cel: http://xseiya.rubberslug.com/gallery/in ... mID=242190
For some reason I didn't inspect it thoroughly immediately after I received it, contrarily to what I usually do.
I only had a careful look today and found something I had never seen before on a cel: the top right corner of one of the two layers has got a mark embedded in the plastic (made by the plastic sheet manufacturer I guess). This is very unusual to me. See picture below.

To people who own VHD cels: have you seen the same mark on your cels ?
On top of that, the douga numbers are "surprising" (A1/END and B1/END) considering there is more than one cel in the sequence.
Finally, the two wisps of hair Meir Link is supposed to have above his eyes (as seen here: http://demon.rubberslug.com/gallery/inv ... mID=103773 ) are missing.
As a result, I am starting to wonder if this is a real cel. What do you think ?

I believe that's the studio seal of authenticity. So nothing to worry about in other words, all of mine have them. They were given the seals because a whole batch of cels were stolen before the production had finished, thus they wanted to distinquish between ours and the stolen ones. At least that's what I heard.

ah ya beat me to the punch, Captain!
i think that cel is from here:
http://anime-link.com/legal/

so you definately have a genuine cel!

not sure why he's missing his hair on the front.

lol, maybe someone gave him a haircut before he got to you. ;-p (heh, sorry i have a terrible sense of humor). lol

Thank you very much for the explanation about the FL logo. I didn't know about this.
Still wondering about the missing hair though... Maybe it was drawn on a separate missing correction layer? Since Prince Vegeta owns a cel from the same sequence, he should be able to tell us.

Yeaah I would say it was real, check the link that Amy gave you and all shall be revealed! As for the missing hair, I'd probably say that it was maybe on a different layer for your particular cel perhaps or maybe even a correction layer (or the haircut option, as mentioned by Amy again...lol You would've thought they would have checked the continuity shots for the actor!)?

Opps, imagine my post above yours ^^

..sounds better that way..lol

i'd say, if you want an official opinion on the matter, to email rick at anime link. he'd know for sure, but i think it's safe to say that it's authentic. congrats on your new cel!

Hi there,

My cel has only one layer and is numbered B9. It's certainly unusual for your douga/genga to be labelled as A1END/B1END considering there are more cels in this cut. I'm also not sure why Meir's hair is not shown on your cel.

I remember that at the time I bought the cel, a friend of mine had the B6 cel from the same sequence and the strands of hair on ML's face were also shown there. Unfortunately I cannot find a scan of the B6 cel on RS as it was sold a while ago. The main difference between his cel and mine was the shadows on Link's face.

The FL mark is the official stamp of the studio on the cel as far as I know.

Cheers,
PV

The best way to tell if yours is a production cel is to just grab a screen cap and compare them line for line. There are differences in 'fakes', and it's always more than just a couple of missing wisps of hair.

Of course there's always the chance that this is a 'real' cel that never made it into the movie, for any one of several possible reasons.

Hello,
my cel is made of 2 layers: one for the head only, and the other one for the rest (the collar). I am starting to think that for some reason this cel, although it is a genuine VHD cel, was not used in the anime. They may have decided to animate the whole image (and not only the head) after all. Or maybe it was decided to re-draw the scene after they realised the strands of hair were missing. I can't imagine it's a fake because of the FL mark and the fact that the 2 douga are included - they look real with notes written in japanese on them.
Anyway, thanks everyone for your help !

id strongly suggest what Caroline said and email Rick.
it said on the page i showed you that they kept records of every cel they had in their inventory. so if you contact him he could compare notes with you.

good luck!