How often do you hold back discussing "obscure" an

[eternaltorture]

Glad to see I'm not the only one avoiding mentioning obscure titles in case of competition

An investor I know collected a title once and I knew I wasn't going to be posting cels from it publicly anytime soon lol I have over 30 cels/sketches and still want more They go for an average of $80-700 currently depending on character, quality and marketplace. Prices have definitely risen over the last few years.. I am one of the few collectors of this series willing to pay prices on the high end while most (the older collectors) have lamented that it's "no longer collectible". $700 to me is still affordable, anything beyond $800 I'll have to think long and hard about it. That's why I don't want new attention and competition on that title at this time I'm both selfish and paranoid, not a good mix


Series I no longer collect from? Popular series? Those, I have absolutely no qualms discussing lol

[sensei]

I miss Cloud.


R.I.P.

And found Vapalla a friendly mentor rather than a competitor. She embodied what I call "restitution": finding service to the collecting community to balance the results of her amazingly good taste in anime art. I hope I too have managed to be a good neighbor as well as a determined auction bidder.

[noildoof]

I don't hold back very much, because I'm well aware that most of the obscure stuff I collect from is utter trash lol. Nobody wants cels from stuff like Roots Search, The Humanoid, or Superdimensional Romanesque Samy.

[GuyvarIII]

I'm not sure I understood the narrative anymore towards the end of The Humanoid. But, I could definitely relate and understand its universal message and theme promoting the greatness of coffee.

I guess I hold back discussing obscure anime... But, that's only really because I usually don't have many chances to discuss any anime. Also, on the web everyone in the world can see what you write, so, I'm not even sure what anime is or isn't obscure anymore.

I consider Galaxy Warrior Rai or Thunder Jet (Ginga Sengoku Gunyūden Rai) an obscure anime. However, since adding it to my web gallery, I have learned that it was quite popular in the Philippines, Thailand, and some Arab countries.

In school I had a teacher who brought in tapes of an old show about a little boy monk who would rub his temples to think through problems given to him by older monks, Ikkyu-san. During my years of collecting, I found some cels from it, and now I know it was the cartoon for an entire generation of Chinese kids.

There are also all those robot and hero shows from the 1970s that aren't really talked about in the states, but appear as references in tons shows and seem to be known by Italian Otaku.... or, they're only a re-boot anime away from moving up from obscure to well-loved classic for a moment.

[theultimatebrucelee]

In school I had a teacher who brought in tapes of an old show about a little boy monk who would rub his temples to think through problems given to him by older monks, Ikkyu-san. During my years of collecting, I found some cels from it, and now I know it was the cartoon for an entire generation of Chinese kids.

Fact. Culture wise back then, Chinese TV stations tend to air stuff that are educational and children friendly. Nowadays, the Chinese 3D trashy cultivation series are as prevalent as the Japanese isekai series. I wonder what would happen if ever there would be a decree on how much and when anime series can be watched like the videogame ruling and how that would affect the Chinese entertainment industry.

Currently, I don't think it matters much whether "obscure" is being talked about relating to the market supply of such series. Since I feel like most collectible series poping up into the market at the sellers discretion. If actual market altering grassroot interest is out there perhaps it'll motive some blackhole collectors to liquidate their collections?

I also don't think material amount of animation art collectors would just jump on the wagon of some obscured series and bookmark the title from all the auction sites because they seen a few ppl talk about it. Since we are talking about series that are at least 20+years old. Despite the rising cost of some series, majority by far of overall cel series are still relatively affordable, and not because no one cares or talks about them.

[cutiebunny]

I don't hold back at all, but, since I generally prefer shoujo animes, it's something that a lot of people aren't interested in.

Most of the titles that I enjoy, such as Rozen Maiden and Pichi Pichi Pitch, don't have a large fanbase outside of Japan. Of course, if either show is aired in the US, this is likely to change. But, the prices for artwork are currently more reasonable than many of the items that I own from Sailormoon.

A topic from 2007. That I probably posted while at the same job I have now. Wow.

My response is largely still the same then as it is now, over 14 years later. I still haven't gravitated to CG. I own a couple of Fate sketches, a ton of Kobato backgrounds and a handful of Trigger sketches that I picked up at AX 2015. I didn't know about shikishi then.

I think CG has made things more obscure. When you're dealing with an industry that puts out 30+ new anime titles every season, most titles are going to go unnoticed. For the handful of titles every season that are popular, where are they 5, 10, 15+ years down the road? It could be because I don't watch anime often, but I can only think of 10 (mostly) CG series from the last 15 years that can still command a large audience today. Overall, I think the writing has gone down in terms of quality when comparing CG series to older, cel based series. That's understandable when there's so much drive to make more and more product because animation has become less time consuming than in was during the cel based era. The most common complaint I've seen is that one series is just a repacking of another series that aired 1, 2, 10 years ago.

In regards to the question, I collect what is often in demand. Everyone that wants to has seen Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc. because those episodes can be found via a 10 second Google search. I don't have to worry that someone is going to be inspired to collect what I do because there are hundreds that do. When American/European auction houses routinely feature items that you collect, it's no longer obscure.

[noildoof]

I'm not sure I understood the narrative anymore towards the end of The Humanoid. But, I could definitely relate and understand its universal message and theme promoting the greatness of coffee.

The Humanoid is the sort of thing where it's much more enjoyable if you just turn your brain off for 45 minutes and bask in the pure 1980's cheese. I do have the novelization, which I desperately wish I could read because the illustrations make it look like there are some major changes to the story. I wonder if coffee is mentioned every few pages...

[GuyvarIII]

I didn't know The Humanoid had a novel. Antoinette's design was the best part of the show, so the still illustrations should look great. I did enjoy the the planet heading towards meltdown with the pop tune, "Power of Love", playing... but, it would be interesting to know if there is an explanation of what was going on with the Ixion at the end, and the green beam of light into outer space.

[Frysende]

This is a fascinating topic because I'm terminally drawn only to cool, hip anime (oh god I sound like an old lady already) and I think the most obscure thing I've ever watched was Kekkaishi (obscure in the sense that it didn't ring any bells to my entire friend group) or Read or Die, which I saw after finding the OVA at a secondhand store. So I guess my question here is how do you find them, the series themselves? I don't have a lot of patience and I certainly have a very hard to please palatte when it comes to anime, but I want to know where y'all come up with your obscure favorites. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's possibly a generational thing (please don't hunt me down, I'm not calling anyone here old) where odd anime would come over to the West in VHS form, air at late night slots maybe once or twice, and not really make any waves. It's easier to find a little-known show now that there's seemingly hundreds a year, but they now don't really leave behind goodies to collect and I have a hard time sifting through the chaff to find something I want to sink my teeth into.

Was this a little off topic? Probably, and for that I apologize!

[sensei]

my question here is how do you find them, the series themselves? I don't have a lot of patience and I certainly have a very hard to please palatte when it comes to anime, but I want to know where y'all come up with your obscure favorites.

As an earlier post by Vapalla notes, some of it was word of mouth. One collector absolutely excited about a certain series and having really nice art from it tends to spread the news in a friendly way. Yeah, Vapalla was maybe happier when no one else was excited by A Tree of Palme but in truth we never got in each others' way. And she was great about letting me know about really exciting new series like Princess Tutu, Asatte no Houkou and Mushishi, for which she loaned me fansubs before any of these was commercially available. I eventually got art from all of these, but not in any competitive way with Vapalla. We helped each other far more than we jousted over available lots.

In truth, though, a lot of times it was just random, a brilliant lightning bolt streaking across or through the computer screen during an otherwise random and predictable trawl through YHJ or Mandarake. My singleton cel from the Yousei-ou OVA was one such: Oh, holy shuusei, I thought when I saw that, I've got to have that. And the research and education on what it was that I had came later. A number of other series that I collect began the same way: an OMG response to something that I saw and knew was something good.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it's possibly a generational thing (please don't hunt me down, I'm not calling anyone here old)

Well, I was already verifiably old when anime was the hot new thing, so be it. I'm just happy that I was still flexible enough between the ears to be able to relate to an emerging art form rather than stay in my stultifying age-group mindset and consider Popeye the apex of animation achievement. You are right, though: when word was leaking out rather than being reliably circulated on the internet, there was a sense of adventure and achievement in learning about anime. Now that the market has matured and is both more immediately available to North American audiences and also less "exotic" or convention-bending, by the same token it doesn't generate the same excitement. The last series that genuinely intrigued me was Snow White with the Red Hair (mostly as a fairy-tale-based plot with absolutely no supernatural elements) and so now I'm probably just as nostalgic as people of much younger age looking back at the time when DBZ and CCS were bold new creations.

Was this a little off topic? Probably, and for that I apologize!

No apologies needed. The forum has been too quiet, and so revivals of old topics with new questions are most welcome!

(I still miss Cloud....)

[cutiebunny]

It helps if you just enjoy looking at all sorts of stuff. I remember when I was buying a lot of backgrounds eons ago that I would type in things like "cel background" and just go through pages of artwork. Most of the stuff didn't interest me or was well beyond what I wanted to pay for things that I thought were pretty, but every so often I would stumble across something and would bid on that.

One of my favorite searches is for anime & manga signed goods. Yup, there are a lot of counterfeits and a lot of hentai. But sometimes you find some really unique stuff. There's been quite a few auctions lately from artwork from various now-obscure shoujo manga from the 1970s that I think are interesting from an artistic perspective. Looking at the fashion, seeing the artistic features and storylines during that period (tennis and boxing were popular themes in the 1970s) are all intriguing to me.

Some artists have Patreon accounts, so that's also a tool you can use if you have someone in mind. I saw that one of the adult artists that will be at Anime Expo has a Patreon sketch tier for $1K and would be something I'd consider if I wanted something from that particular artist in lieu of spending thousands for airfare/hotel. Crowdfunding projects also can yield some interesting stuff too.

I guess the main key is simply to be patient. Sometimes you just have to keep checking a particular anime or artist on a regular basis and hope that something might show up.