Questioning Authenticity

[Ichigos]

Hi there!

I posted this on Reddit trying to get help to verify what episode this douga was from. Someone pointed out it might actually be a fake due to the Romanian letters on it.

I think I bought this off of eBay but it’s been so long and I’ve bought so much animation artwork since then that I don’t actually remember.

Does anyone have any dougas that have Romanian letters like this on it?

[Ichigos]

If the image doesn’t load above... I’m referring to this in my gallery :

http://ichigos.rubberslug.com/gallery/i ... mID=422192

[sensei]

I don't know this series so my opinion is just based on other dougas and gengas I've seen from Toei.

There have been times when I've seen notations like "under suit" on Toei dougas, usually when a checker has spotted an error in the cel painting. This might indicate that the painter did not use a separate color for Vegita's skin and the part of his clothing above and under the raised collar. Toei often had these notes in English (sometimes with the Japanese added) as they subcontracted the cel painting all around Asia and English was a more effective "common language" than Japanese. At times I've seen Korean translations as well, but not with Toei. It's quite possible that this notation is a genuine studio addition.

The Romanian "Vesita" is however odd. It might be the character's name transliterated from some Asian language rather than Romanian. I've seen very strange character names written on Toei sketches, e.g., "Syndobat" for the character "Sinbad" in Toei's Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. If so it could be the checker's Engrish reference to the setting materials for Vegita, which make clear that the undershirt he's wearing here needs to be painted such-and-such a color.

It also might have been written on it by a previous owner or reseller who had checked out the character's identity and jotted it down on the sketch. Keeping in mind that there was a period in which animation art was very common and often considered just one notch above trash, it's possible that early owners saw no problem in writing character IDs on them. (I've heard of, but not actually seen, a sketch that had a long note in the corner, which turned out to be what everyone ordered from the Chinese takeaway.)

Exclusive of the notations, the sketch looks like a pretty typical douga of the period with a normal looking sequence number and typical shading instructions. Nothing shouts "fan art" to me. And I doubt that a forger would spoil a nice sketch like this by writing notes on it.

[Ichigos]

Thanks sensei! You're always super insightful with your replies. I was speaking with a few people from a DB group on Facebook and they also believe this is legitimate.

"I've heard of, but not actually seen, a sketch that had a long note in the corner, which turned out to be what everyone ordered from the Chinese takeaway"

This sounds so wild. Oh my gosh.

[sensei]

I do have sketches (especially dougas) that had cups of coffee spilled on them. Knowing how cel painters worked (they were paid by the number of cels painted, not by the hour, and at the very bottom of the pay scale, just above inbetweeners or douga artists) it's not unusual to see this kind of abuse. Their main use really was to be run through the little machine that imprinted the lines on the cel sheet and only secondly for checking, and finally to stack between the used cels so the whole pile doesn't stick together into a plastic block.

I also thought may be the odd "s" in "Vesita" might be someone's misreading of a cursive Roman lowercase "g" which can look like an "s" to a non-English reader. Kinda like how "9" often is written as "P" by many staffers (esp. in sequence numbers).