What are these copies?

[Pixel]

I've found these..I'm not sure what they are. I mean, yes the series is Azumanga Daioh (no shock there). Chiyo and Tomo are both from either Episode 1 or 2, IIRC.

Chiyo

azu_modify_chiyo.jpg (103.55 KiB) Viewed 1335 times

Sakaki-san and the cat

azu_modify_sakaki.jpg (96.32 KiB) Viewed 1335 times

Tomo

azu_modify_tomo.jpg (124.09 KiB) Viewed 1335 times

They look like photocopies, but of what stage? Are they copies of shuusei? Some look more finished than others, but all look close to final as best I can remember. (Well, there is still some rough line work, but the geenral feel of them is very much how these scenes feel in final production.)

They are described as 修正集

Is there anyway to tell if they are studio copies, or just home-made copies?

[sensei]

I defer to anyone whose Japanese is better than mine (which is pretty much the whole world west of the Rocky Mountains and east of the Azores). But 修正 = Shuusei, which is the general term in animation studios for a sketch that corrects a layout (these are also called "roughs") or one that corrects a genga. These are done by senior animators, usually the episode animation directors and on occasion by the series animation directors.

集 = shuu or "collection, compilation, assembly (of)" In my experience a shuusei-shuu is a bundle of photocopied roughs/corrections that were passed around to the key animators on a particular series so they could see what the head honchos in the animation team were doing with important characters. If you do a search on YHK for "修正集" you'll get links to quite a variety of these and so gain a sense of how this one compares with those for other series.

I've never collected "shuusei compilations" so I can't say more than that these are obviously photocopies, and probably not first-generation either. I'd guess the originals were copied, and then bundles of these first-gen copies were then numbered (I can see what appear to be page numbers in the bottom right corner) and then run off for as many animators who needed them. Once one of these reaches the market, then of course it's no big deal for a seller to make third-gen copies of the studio-circulated copy, as many as there are buyers out there. But from the quality of the page numbers, I'd guess this is a second-gen studio copy.

[Pixel]

I've never collected "shuusei compilations" so I can't say more than that these are obviously photocopies, and probably not first-generation either. I'd guess the originals were copied, and then bundles of these first-gen copies were then numbered (I can see what appear to be page numbers in the bottom right corner) and then run off for as many animators who needed them. Once one of these reaches the market, then of course it's no big deal for a seller to make third-gen copies of the studio-circulated copy, as many as there are buyers out there. But from the quality of the page numbers, I'd guess this is a second-gen studio copy.

I've been looking these over, and I notice I can barely see the outline of registration holes above Tomo, I'm guessing that was from the original sheet to 1st-gen copy (would the original be mint-green, like my Chiyo/Yomi E25-C7 shuusei)? Then copied over onto this one.

I also notice there is a lot of mostly clear space on the left hand side of Tomo, suggesting a different size paper was used at some point.

This is one thing that has bothered me about high-page-count elements like this. How to tell if copies are official, or fake. Studio copies might be okay...well, it actually depends on exactly what was copied, but third-hand "homemade copies" basically means getting "burned" by the seller.

It sounds like these stand a pretty-good chance of being actual studio copies, but still rather removed from the originals (copies-of-copies).

There's a possibility of course that any studio copies might be the only representations of some pieces left in existence, since so much of this stuff was simply thrown away. The problem is, there's not much way to know for sure. (Unless you actually do happen to have the original(s), of course.)

All of this makes me wonder if a set like this might contain a copy of that E25/C7 shuusei, now that would be a trip-a copy still in Japan, the original in an Itoya folder not 10 feet away from me.

BTW, what is YHK?

[sensei]

BTW, what is YHK?

That's my sleepy eight-papers-graded, just-seven-more-to-go sloppy typing of YHJ = Yahoo Japan. I keep one of my old original searches on that auction site for the sake of copying and pasting text like this in the "Search" box to see what comes up.

I saw a Kill la Kill "shuusei compilation" up for sale, for instance, so this technique is still in use, though the quality of the copies is much improved. They are now the same color as the thin paper used by the animation director, for instance. For example, see the second thumbnail sketch in this Mushishi set. The featured art board is original art but the two sketches in the thumbs are both copies. You really need that loupe to confirm this for the second one (seemingly on yellow paper but actually a color copy).

[Pixel]

BTW, what is YHK?

That's my sleepy eight-papers-graded, just-seven-more-to-go sloppy typing of YHJ = Yahoo Japan. I keep one of my old original searches on that auction site for the sake of copying and pasting text like this in the "Search" box to see what comes up.

I saw a Kill la Kill "shuusei compilation" up for sale, for instance, so this technique is still in use, though the quality of the copies is much improved. They are now the same color as the thin paper used by the animation director, for instance. For example, see the second thumbnail sketch in this Mushishi set. The featured art board is original art but the two sketches in the thumbs are both copies. You really need that loupe to confirm this for the second one (seemingly on yellow paper but actually a color copy).

Sorry about that, I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss a resource somewhere, the Anime Encyclopedia has already come in very handy.

Mushishi must be a relatively recent TV series, the production art is set-up for a widescreen (HD) presentation. I noticed RM was also widescreen as well.

To me, these copies might be more interesting if I thought there was new information in them. That is, elements that are still not yet fully consistent with the finished production. Regarding the Azu set in particular, the few I saw as examples looked to be very near completion, needing mainly line clean up. Seems like it would be a gamble on anything turning up.