Absolutely!!! Sensei's Last Update...

Post by **sensei** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 9:38 pm

... for awhile. As those who have been following my RS blog, we've sold our house in PA and over the next 2 months we will be packing and moving most of the stuff to MD, with me setting up a skeleton apartment here to finish out my couple of years to retirement. (Long story...) So I've shut down my auction browsing and the pipeline of "coming soon" stuff, and am preparing for a long midsummer vacation from the cel chase.

But this week my last big shipment arrived, and I've gotten most of it up. (As usual, PPGZ sketches will follow). While not as spectacular as my "May Madness" swag, there are still some very nice items:

From CCS:

Tomoyo giving Li Syaoran his battle costume (with original production bg)

Kerberos and Yue helping with the chores (with unmatching but suitable copy bg of the Kinomoto kitchen).

From MKR:

A funny cel of Mokona Mad at Umi

And, perhaps the highlight, some very nice sketches from KKJ:

WISHLIST! The tiny but evil angel Time Access

INTENSE! Jeanne catching Her breath during one of her hardest battles.

SAD! Poor unheralded Yamato-kun, a lonely Yaoi guy in a mahou shoujo series. (Someone point him to Gravitation!)

Enjoy!

tex-chan · Post by **tex-chan** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 8:17 am

I already left a note in your blog, but had to comment here, too. Lovely, lovey update!!! Congrats on the new items.

RoboFlonne · Post by **RoboFlonne** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 9:18 am

Love your update!

Mokona vs. Umi!

http://sensei.rubberslug.com/gallery/in ... mID=209261

ReiTheJelly · Post by **ReiTheJelly** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 3:47 pm

Oooh...that is the first Access Time sketch set that I've ever seen. What a great snag!

kira · Post by **kira** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 4:59 pm

very nice update, sensei.

Post by **sensei** » Mon Jul 02, 2007 9:09 pm

Thanks, all, for stopping by, and special thanks to Tex and Miss Z for looking at the KKJ sketches. This is a series that's stayed under the radar, due to its never being licenced in North America. But the production quality, thanks to Toei Studios, is very high: I've never seen dougas as beautiful as those they produced. Usually the quality of the art peaks at the genga or shuusei stage, but Toei managed to give even the inbetweeners a special spark of quality that makes them viewable in themselves. And the plot, while repetitive, is often really dark and quirky, even more so than with CLAMP, thanks to the inspiration of Arina Tanemura (Full Moon wo Sagashite).

Yes, Time Access is a favorite of mine, and I lurked for years before this set came up (not the featured sketch set, oddly). I'm delighted to snag him. And the Umi/Mokona cel is delightful, the more so if you know what's about to happen!

I managed to do a thorough revision of the Powerpuff Girls Z “We’re Not Weeds!” Gallery, adding better plot descriptions and screen caps. While short and kiddy-conscious, this episode actually manages to make a couple of valid points, and so I think it's much better than advance reviews said. (About the second half of this show, however, the less said, the better.)

A dozen or so new PPGZ sketches are set to go up, and in cleaning up to move I reminded myself that I've got a bunch of Slayers sketches that need scanning. Most of them have nasty celotape issues that I need to resolve before doing so, however. But I expect that getting these two sets up will finish up my gallery updates for the foreseeable future.

Thanks again to all who had a look.

funshine · Post by **funshine** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 1:06 pm

nice update! love the kkj sketches, esp time!

Post by **sensei** » Tue Jul 03, 2007 5:34 pm

Thanks, funshine. Now the new PPGZ sketches are up. Not as splashy as the "Weeds" sets, but with some good action images.

LinaLoN · Post by **LinaLoN** » Wed Jul 04, 2007 6:17 pm

Like I said in your weblog, I just love your CCS palace! You have so many wonderful cels and from rememberable (is that even a word or splet right?) scenes! And your newest additions make it all that more special!

Shampoo · Post by **Shampoo** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 10:34 am

What a way to go on a short hiatus senseii!!

Lovely items!

Your CCS collection has taken a whooole life of its own its beautiful to
see i t blossom more and more

Yours and Craig (Rallihir) are my 2 absolute favs for Clamp goodness!

The PPGZ genga cracked me up!

I really have to sit down and watch
it since I adore the american vers.

Heres hoping to a smooth move and may nothing break, go missing, or end up in Tahiti!

Good luck senseii!

:

Post by **sensei** » Thu Jul 05, 2007 8:54 pm

Thanks, LinaLoN and Shampoo. CCS was my first real love, and it's a privilege to be able to "possess" some of the really memorable moments in it. MKR is a secondary love, more for the gorgeous art than for the story, and again I've been really lucky.

Shampoo, PPGZ is worth watching, though more in the vein of "Adventures of the Mini-Goddesses" than CCS or MKR. (And I love the Mini-Goddesses, so that's no faint praise.) If you don't expect coherent story arcs or even coherent 10-minute plots from it, I find it visually amusing, with the characters surprisingly engaging and engagingly surprising. And the sketch art shows such exuberance that one really feels that the artists were having a ball creating it.

Not to make my "final bow" overly protracted, but in cleaning up my office and organizing my collection (it's far less orderly in person than it is online) I discovered that I had a pile of Slayers gengas that I'd gotten during the May Madness that had never been scanned. I'm working on these now (celotape horrors, alas), and when they go up, that will truly be Sensei's last update until the fall.

LinaLoN, your expertise will be helpful in putting these images into context.

Post by **sensei** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:03 am

Well, this is finally it for a long while. I processed the Slayers haul and got up the most impressive images. You can have an overall look at the new batch by going to the head of the Slayers gallery.

I think it's the strongest update I've done from this series, featuring lots of really nice images of Lina Inverse, including

A happy Lina with a big swag (of gold pieces?)

or

her being blown up in a huge kaboom.

But I’m personally happiest with two very impressive pan gengas (still impressive in the scaled-down scans on display) of

Zelgadis holding his sword

and

Gourry in full battle cry.

But that's all, folks, untill I get settled down in the neighborhood of Tail of the Fox Lane!

But still ... not sayonara but ja-ne.

PS, contextual info on the sketches from Slayers fans would be appreciated! I've only seen Try (and not all of that!) but I love the art.

kittens · Post by **kittens** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 12:18 pm

Nice update

I really like Kerberos and Yue cel