Recognizing backgrounds

[Keropi]

Are you guys able to recognize backgrounds when you run across them?

I find that it's pretty rare when I am able to recognize what show they came from. About the only backgrounds I can remember recognizing without additional help were backgrounds I ran across from Kure-nai.

[cutiebunny]

Actually...yeah.

Granted, I don't watch a lot of anime, nor do I actively look for the anime where the many backgrounds I have were used, but, one time, while watching an episode of Bo-bo-bo (episode 37) on the CN, I saw the large space background which matched up to mine.

Since it is a pan background, it was on the screen for a good thirty seconds. But I seriously blurted out that they were using *my* background and was super excited by it.

Other than the backgrounds that I've purchased knowing what anime episode they were from, that's the only instance where I was able to identify the show that used an unknown background.

[graymouser]

It depends on the show. The backgrounds of some shows are very distinctive either in their use of color, in the amount of detail, or in the art style that they use.

I am hopelessly behind in my anime viewing so I have many unidentified backgrounds that I am pretty sure came from relatively recent CG shows. Still, I have been able to identify a lot more than I ever thought I would. The latest ones I could ID were 5 that came from Tenjho Tenge. http://itamejihada.net/backgrounds/tt/tt1.html I suspect that there may be more, but those 5 popped out at me immediately. One of these days I will have to rewatch the show and see if there are any I missed.

The most backgrounds that I have been able to identify (156) came from Mirage of Blaze-TV. I think this is a combination of how much I like the show as well as the colors and artwork of the backgrounds. For some reason I find the style in which the trees are painted especially memorable.

There have also been times where I have bought cels because I recognized that the background paired with them matched cels that I owned. There have been several cases of this, but below is the only time where I kept the cel that ceme with the background I wanted.

Cel with separately purchased background.
http://itamejihada.net/cels/nazca/nazca1d.html

Cel that was sold with the above-mentioned background.
http://itamejihada.net/cels/nazca/nazca2g.html

Finally, there been cases where I have recognized backgrounds to my cels being sold as stand-alone backgrounds. One example is from Vampire Hunter D
http://itamejihada.net/cels/vhd/vhd3c.html

[Keropi]

I guess the trick is for the background to be distinctive enough to recognize. Generic school buildings usually aren't recognizable.

These Kure-nai backgrounds were distinctive to me:

These red buildings were easy to spot:


The inside of their apartment was so dirty as to be easily recognizable also:


But rarely is that the case for me.

[kizu]

I try to keep in mind the background of cels I really like (if they didn't come with one), so I'm able to recognize those background fairly well... But if I didn't pay attention like that, I wouldn't be able to tell at all...