2021 Year in Review & 2022 Cel/Sketch Resolutions

[sensei]

It's time for the YoR/Resolution thread! I began this post back in 2006, and with the help of Cutiebunny it's become a Rubberslug tradition for more than a decade. Now it returns for its 16th year. With the old year thankfully wrapping up, it's time to look back on the year's events and make some plans for 2022.

1. What was the best thing that's happened to your gallery/collection in 2021?

2. What was the most surprising thing that happened to your gallery/collection this year?

3. Which piece were you most proud of acquiring in 2021?

4. What's something that concerns you about your collecting experience?

5. What cel/sketch-related resolution do you want to make for 2022?

6. If you posted a cel/sketch-related resolution for 2021 or for 2020, how true did you stay to it?

I'll post my responses in a little while, but meantime, take a moment to look back and hope for what's to come.

[sensei]

1. Best thing ?
Full cel folder "crawl" from Book 1 to Book 25, with cel bag and microchamber paper replacement as needed. I was happy to find only three cels showing new signs of distress and many in as good shape as I first saw them twenty years ago.

2. Most surprising thing ?
Seeing original watercolor backgrounds for Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Edition appear for auction and sell for not a whole lot (i.e., for Sensei's opening bid. These will show in in my New Year update. Second place: Seeing the matching top-layer cel for one of my vintage Grimms Fairy Tales: The Golden Bird cels show up randomly for auction.

3. Most proud of ?
I'd say Kumi Ishii's rough of Shinku possessing Jun from Ep. 1 of Rozen Maiden. I'd had the genga for ten years, and it had totally mesmerized me in its mastery of perspective and composition. I'd felt then the impact of a major animator on top of her game, and getting this astonishing rough confirmed my feeling.

4. Concerns you?
I've had a serious downtick in health; nothing dire, but something that has forced me to give up many activities that I'd loved. So far, animation art collecting isn't one of them, but I'm concerned that my age may mean transferring some of the responsibility for maintaining my collection. Already, I've had to back off on some of my duties for Anime-Beta, and I need to prepare for some kind of orderly retreat from an activity that I've found immensely satisfying for more than twenty years.

5. Resolution do you want to make for 2022?
See #6

6. How true did you stay to it?
Yes, I continued work on my inventory and did a complete crawl of sketchwork boxes and of cel books. A number of omissions and incomplete work quickly became evident, and while I have not completely finished my work (due partly to my health issues) I feel more confident that I know know where all my cels (and their dougas) are. As I can, I hope to bring this work to completion and be able to print off a complete catalog of my anime collection, which will help me prepare for its future.

[kizu]

Hey sensei! Happy Holidays and thanks for starting the resolutions thread without fail!

1. What was the best thing that's happened to your gallery/collection in 2021?
I think I got at least two Kenshin dream pieces that I thought was out of my reach. It's not Saitou but it's actually Kenshin! And I do love Kenshin of course.

2. What was the most surprising thing that happened to your gallery/collection this year? I was able to add a number of RK OVA cels especially from the 1st OVA which I consider still to be a masterpiece.

3. Which piece were you most proud of acquiring in 2021? A Battousai cel but not from ep 30. It was a pain to get into the country though due to size. I haven't scanned it either so I guess I can't show it off.

4. What's something that concerns you about your collecting experience? A few things:
1) I think I'm having a hard time valuing cels these days. I feel like the valuations are all over and there are some sellers who just puts an astronomical price out there but they're also the same people who are watching auction houses and essentially just pricing cels as auction houses with their premium mark-ups. And yet I know some of the sellers don't really keep good care of the cels and some are deteriorating in collections while they wait for whoever will pay the stated price.
2) I worry about the cel community as a disjointed community. There's some on facebook, instagram, forums like this one and rubberslug that seems like it's dying or very soon will. And so I think people are trying new things like the social media and their own website (like I do), so it just adds to the disjointedness. I even believe that due to this, it adds to people either dropping out entirely or just not bothering to share their collections.
3) And as for sharing collections, I've seen the rise of NFTs. For now the main use of NFT of course is digital art but I'm concerned that this will extend to cel images both physical cels owned by collectors and "images" owned by the IP holder. I've seen a company or two creating NFTs for famous scenes or plan to use cel images to create an NFT for people to buy into, without the permission of the IP holder or the cel owner. This is one thing that is making me rethink displaying my cels online. I think NFT might be a good way to provide authenticity as to who owns an existing cel and then transfer that NFT ownership once it's sold but that's an additional cost that is prohibitive to other collectors (and can be complicated) and just because you own an NFT for a physical object doesn't make the NFT valuable in itself, it's the physical object that is valuable. The NFT is nothing more than a COA that is issued, no different than when mandarake issues their "COA" guarantees. The truth is a lot of the cels is already passed several times so provenance is hard to prove and it makes more sense to scrutinize the intrinsic attributes of the cel, the collection it's coming from and the history of sales to prove authenticity - I think. But thankfully I don't look at these things as investment but certainly many other people do just looking at FB post and those private sellers I've spoken to before. And there's certainly stopping no one from creating a fake cel and then creating an NFT on it to say it's authentic... And certainly there'd be no protections for cel collectors as I think owning cels are in this gray area... At least IP holders can go after NFT creators who use their IP without authorization...
4) A master key cel setup of Kenshin fighting Aoshi that I used to own came up for auction in Heritage auctions several weeks ago. I was a bit upset when I let go of this cel in a trade two years ago as I felt there were issues with the trade itself which I won't go into details here... I believe this cel went immediately to someone else after that botched trade. But I remember being upset a 2nd time seeing it on heritage auction because they had mislabeled it as a movie cel when it fact it was from a really important TV scene... And they didn't even call it a Master Key Setup, just a master background... I remembered I bought this cel when I had no business of trying to collect cels and buying it from a collector in rubberslug over a decade ago via payment plans. So I had a lot of attachment to the cel. I don't know if it's a good thing or not but at least it fetched a decent price. But yeah I'm concerned about selling and trading practices these days.

5. What cel/sketch-related resolution do you want to make for 2022?
Knowing that cels don't last forever, I don't really believe in keeping them all to myself. There are of course some series that I won't let go off, but the others? Some series are loved more by others than me and I do have some of those in my collection. Wouldn't it be better if they can go to collections that treasure them? So I'm trying to figure out how to go about letting go. And on the opposite side of that is, I would like to add a Saitou cel to my collection. I'm tired of seeing one or two go up a year and just not be able to buy it because I'm not in Japan

6. If you posted a cel/sketch-related resolution for 2021 or for 2020, how true did you stay to it? Not very true. I'm still as lazy as ever in recording how much i pay for things and from who. The problem I think is when sales happen on email i tend to lose track due to the many negotiations back and forth.

[tarakatsuki]

1. What was the best thing that's happened to your gallery/collection in 2021?

I added a good bit to it. Both cels and non-cel items for my collection.

2. What was the most surprising thing that happened to your gallery/collection this year?

I don't know, I don't feel like anything is necessarily "surprising." Although it was a nice surprise to see a cel posted for auction that I lost out over a year ago (because the seller cancelled my bid after I placed it because they didn't want to sell to a deputy service) get listed once again and I was the only bidder on it. Yay!

3. Which piece were you most proud of acquiring in 2021?

You can't ask me to pick just one. But this one is high up on that list. I'm always a huge sucker for Inuyasha in a baseball hat

4. What's something that concerns you about your collecting experience?

Prices skyrocketing. How well other people store their cels, I baby my cels and check them yearly, and when I see new cels arrive in bags so wrinkled they probably havent been changed in 15 years it makes me sad. Plus the idea that so many great cels out there might get lost or somehow destroyed over time if the owner dies and they get passed on to someone who doesn't know the value of what they have, etc.

5. What cel/sketch-related resolution do you want to make for 2022?

I really need to better organize my binders so I know what cels are in which one and keep track of that. Also, I keep saying I ought to make another website for my collection, so that I can have my cels displayed in more than one way. Currently on RS they are primarily arranged by episodes. Which is what I want, but I also want to be able to view them all by character, because when I need to look back through what I already own when considering buying something, it's a pain to dig through all the categories I have on RS.

6. If you posted a cel/sketch-related resolution for 2021 or for 2020, how true did you stay to it?

I didn't, but my goal for a while was to organize those binders so I know what is where. I started to attempt that when I did my rebagging session this past spring. I made it through one binder out of like twelve and gave up.

[JWR]

1. What was the best thing that's happened to your gallery/collection in 2021?
That I actually have been able add some quality pieces of both anime cels and out other interests.

2. What was the most surprising thing that happened to your gallery/collection this year?
That after close to 10 years of looking for anything from The World of Narue and coming up empty a batch of original pencil character sheets popped up on YJ.

3. Which piece were you most proud of acquiring in 2021?
I was able to purchase a Wakizashi (the short sword used by the Samurai) that has the paperwork showing it was made during the Muromachi period and traced to a swordsmith who was active from 1360 to 1385. To be able to own something so special that has been handed down through history from a 100 years before Columbus to now is awe inspiring.

4. What's something that concerns you about your collecting experience?
Like most the trend up in prices to unreasonable levels.

5. What cel/sketch-related resolution do you want to make for 2022?
To continue to make calculated purchases and not get caught up in overpaying.

6. If you posted a cel/sketch-related resolution for 2021 or for 2020, how true did you stay to it?
yes

[GuyvarIII]

1. What was the best thing that's happened to your gallery/collection in 2021?
2. What was the most surprising thing that happened to your gallery/collection this year?

I updated my Rubberslug page in May, and added some really great Amon Saga, Arslan Senki, Bastard, and Berserk cels. I have had many of the cels for a while, but they were not up on my gallery. Probably the two most notable additions were the pan Berserk cel of Caska about to slug Guts, and the large Bastard cel of Dark Schneider ripping his heart out of his chest (Thanks Linda!).

3. Which piece were you most proud of acquiring in 2021?

Proud is a strong word. However, this year it has to be the cel I got of Marou from Curse of the Undead Yoma. It just came up earlier this month, and it's still at Rinkya. It's amazing. It's missing its top layer, but that hardly matters.

It's the climax from the first OVA of the two part ninja horror show. The immediate shock value is that it's a gruesome scene of an emaciated person eating someone. In the story, it is also the scene where our protagonist loses hope. Hikage sees that Marou is no longer human, and knows he's going to have to kill the friend he loved. I consider it to be a powerful scene, and one of the images that defines Anime as a unique form of animation.

I also got a few awesome action scenes, a great cel of Remi's revolver from GoShogun-Time Etranger, and some other cels. You can see some of the cels I got this year below:

4. What's something that concerns you about your collecting experience?

Prices may be all over the place, but, I think my collection has enough diversity that I can stay in the game...
And, if not, I still have cels I need to add to my gallery. I need to find the time to update.

5. What cel/sketch-related resolution do you want to make for 2022?

I do need to update my gallery. However, I don't see myself finishing that anytime soon, and I'm not making it my resolution for 2022.

6. If you posted a cel/sketch-related resolution for 2021 or for 2020, how true did you stay to it?

I added more than three cels this year, so I'll consider that a win!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

[cutiebunny]

I actually visited the site tonight to see if Sensei had posted the YoR topic and was not disappointed lol

OMG...we've been doing this for 16 years now...

1. What was the best thing that's happened to your gallery/collection in 2021?

I did very little this year. I got really put off by Instagram in the first part of the year due to a combination of people under the assumption that everything has a price, people bragging about how they own something similar/better (does anyone ever contact others saying they own something worse?) and just the toxicity of many people who use that platform in general. For someone who uses social media as a form of relaxation, being bombarded with toxicity made me reject it. I don't even receive reminders from Instagram anymore, so maybe they've come to the realization that my goal in life is not to be labeled as an *influencer*

As an aside, at what age is it creepy to want others to recognize you as an influencer and to refer to yourself as an influencer?


2. What was the most surprising thing that happened to your gallery/collection this year?

I bought a grand total of 0 nengajo this year. I have been collecting them for 5+ years. I suppose I shouldn't find it surprising since I bought only 1 in 2020. I also haven't made a purchase through a deputy service in 8+ months. I think that's a record for me.

I found it amusing that artwork that is 50 years old is considered to be an antique and most deputy services won't touch it with a thirty-nine and a half foot pole. I had a hard time finding a deputy that would send artwork that old to the US.


3. Which piece were you most proud of acquiring in 2021?

I always have a hard time just selecting one. Maybe the Ikuko Ito settei? I'll probably have a different answer in an hour


4. What's something that concerns you about your collecting experience?

After two years of COVID restrictions, I realized that a lot of what I buy came directly from the anime conventions that I would attend. I didn't attend any conventions this year despite a few popping up in states with more relaxed COVID regulations towards the end of the year. Even assuming both conventions and Japanese guests will be back in 2022, my continued attendance is going to depend largely on how conventions choose to handle autographs. Am I going to be allowed to stand in line for an autograph or will it be done via a lottery system that won't be decided until I spend hundreds of dollars to attend the event? There's very little incentive for me to attend if there's no guarantee that I'll get what I'm after.

I also think there are a lot of very toxic individuals in the collecting community. Maybe not at the same level that there were when I first started collecting with people writing your name in their Death Note for having the audacity to bid on their 'wishlist of the week' cels. Every time I read passive-aggressive comments on the Facebook page where people post that an item has been listed for sale for weeks, that they and they alone recognized what would retain their monetary value decades later, etc, I cringe. We are not in high school and this is not a popularity contest. Grow. The. Eff. Up.

5. What cel/sketch-related resolution do you want to make for 2022?

Every time I see someone post some lame passive-aggressive comment on the Facebook page, I will respond with pics of stuff I own. If I post on Instagram ever again and someone brings that toxicity to anything I post, again, there will be further posts.

Cheer people on. Celebrate the purchases that others are excited about, even if what you own is better and/or cheaper than what was posted. If they bought something fake, be a friend and point out why it is fake. Encourage them to get a refund from the seller. Remember that not everyone had the luxury of going to Tokyo in 1989 and buying Totoro cels for 2000 yen a piece. Not everyone can drop thousands of dollars on this hobby either. If you want to know what's going to destroy the hobby, it's not going to be the changes in technology, the shortage of new stuff available, etc. It will be toxic collectors.


6. If you posted a cel/sketch-related resolution for 2021 or for 2020, how true did you stay to it?

2020 - I said wanted to get the artwork that's owed to me. I'm still waiting on those Mamoru Yokota sketches. I'm glad that he apparently finished them after 3+(?) years but I've seen previews of his finished jobs for me several times in the past and won't believe they exist until they arrive stateside.

2021 - I didn't make one as the COVID pandemic made me think it better to focus elsewhere.

[eternaltorture]

2020 - I said wanted to get the artwork that's owed to me. I'm still waiting on those Mamoru Yokota sketches. I'm glad that he apparently finished them after 3+(?) years but I've seen previews of his finished jobs for me several times in the past and won't believe they exist until they arrive stateside.

I think I know what you're talking about... I commissioned a few pieces back in 2019 through their handler whose last email to me was that year. I've sent 2 emails since then asking for updates and received no response. Sending you a DM