Yupa's Gallery Updates

[Promethium]

Oh and congrats on your first cel! I'm sure they'll be more

[sensei]

That’s interesting sensei but I have to go with Yupa on this one when a character’s name is written down a certain way by the creator or animator like Yupa’s shown it’s their intended name.

That would be true IF the person who wrote the name on the sketch were the creator or animator. But in my experience these sketches are made by gengamen (a unisex term btw, as many animators are female) and not the animation director of the episode, much less the series animation director, much less the series director or concept originator.

I've seen a number of mangled romanji names on sketches. Inthis sketch from Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne , for instance, the two characters are labeled "Jannu" and "Syndobat" but we know from the manga and officially released merchandise from the anime that they are "Jeanne" and "Sinbad." Or this sketch from Powerpuff Girls Z, which gives the name of the top character as "Bullisom" when we all know that she is "Blossom."

For that matter, I've even seen fully painted cels from Cardcaptor Sakura that depict an especially powerful Clow Card carefully labeled in block letters "THE FRY." So I would in this case give the Japanese licensors the nod, as it's more likely that they checked with the author, Isuna Hasekura, to see which romanji spelling he preferred.

Hasekura has a blog (in Japanese) and it would be interesting for someone with fluency to check it and see if he has checked in on this matter there.

[D123]

That’s interesting sensei but I have to go with Yupa on this one when a character’s name is written down a certain way by the creator or animator like Yupa’s shown it’s their intended name.

That would be true IF the person who wrote the name on the sketch were the creator or animator. But in my experience these sketches are made by gengamen (a unisex term btw, as many animators are female) and not the animation director of the episode, much less the series animation director, much less the series director or concept originator.

I've seen a number of mangled romanji names on sketches. Inthis sketch from Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne , for instance, the two characters are labeled "Jannu" and "Syndobat" but we know from the manga and officially released merchandise from the anime that they are "Jeanne" and "Sinbad." Or this sketch from Powerpuff Girls Z, which gives the name of the top character as "Bullisom" when we all know that she is "Blossom."

For that matter, I've even seen fully painted cels from Cardcaptor Sakura that depict an especially powerful Clow Card carefully labeled in block letters "THE FRY." So I would in this case give the Japanese licensors the nod, as it's more likely that they checked with the author, Isuna Hasekura, to see which romanji spelling he preferred.

Hasekura has a blog (in Japanese) and it would be interesting for someone with fluency to check it and see if he has checked in on this matter there.

Haha, Ok you got me there

[Yupa]

...I guess you're right. So now we know genga and pronunciation are not always equal to the official name.

I got this from an interesting discussion on Wikipedia:

Anyway, just because クロエ is used in Japanese media does not mean her name is Kuroe. Her name is still pronounced Kuroe by Japanese people, but its English name is still written as Chloe. The same logic goes for Holo, where ホロ is used in Japanese media and her name is still pronounced Horo, but the official assumes her name will be written in English 'Holo' in the middle-age European setting.
[...]
Spice and Wolf is told in a setting where people use alphabets to write their languages and names. Although people are speaking Japanese in the Japanese version of novel and uses Katakana names (for obvious reason, as it is written by Japanese author and the novel is sold in Japan), the characters obviously have alphabetical names. As shown in evidences above, the official Japanese goods and websites have been using the alphabetical name of 'Holo' to describe the main character and that is going to be the word that we assume people in the story will be using. The fiction is set in European middle-age time and I don't think people in the fiction would be actually speaking Japanese or writing their names in Kanakana according to the story.

The strongest counter argument that I found was that Horo's name comes from the Japanese (Ainu) word for "Wolf". Apparently there also is a character in Shaman King named Horohoro (ホロホロ) for that reason. But that doesn't take away the fact that they chose the name Holo. Well at least they didn't change Lawrence to Lawlence or Nora to Nola...

Thanks for the translation, Promethium!

[sensei]

There are some real mysteries in character names, such as the correct rendering in Rozen Maiden of Shinku's animating/artificial spirit ホーリエ -- Horie? Holie? Hollier? The fansub/licenced anime subtitle/manga translation are all over the place. The first three katakana letters are the same as in AMG's ホーリーベル or "Holy Bell," Belldandy's indwelling angel. So ホーリエ is "Holy Eh." (To make matters worse, ホーリエル is “Holy El,” used in Japanese as a name for an angel-like kami inspired by Christian beliefs.)

I just call the little spark "Holy 'ell" which seems to fit Shinku's personality well. But I don't really know what the proper romanji is and evidently no one else does either.

[D123]

that doesn't take away the fact that they chose the name Holo.

It’s still a pretty name… XD

[Yupa]

It makes me think of Halo, or holographic things.

I just uploaded the last cut (cut 14) of my artwork from the promotional video for the game Arcadia Saga. You can find it here. It has a slightly unusual production process, you'll find in order:
1. First timesheet copy
2. Layout copies
3. First douga animation
4. Corrected timesheet
5. Rough douga corrections
6. Corrected douga animation

Like I said before all sheets were in A3 size so I couldn't fully scan them. However I tried to get the most of the artwork scanned.

[D123]

It makes me think of Halo, or holographic things.

LOL

I just uploaded the last cut (cut 14) of my artwork from the promotional video for the game Arcadia Saga. You can find it here.

That thing's scary

[Yupa]

I just listened to last week's ANNCast (ANN's podcast) and they discussed exactly one of the things we talked about here. So I decided to write it down here, it's pretty interesting. Zac Bertschy is interviewing Jonathan Tarbox, who translated quite a few manga to English.

Twitter question: Any cases where Japanese publishers have demanded names and words have to be a certain way?
Jonathan Tarbox: Yes. Oh the worst part about the approvals process, and I'll tell everybody one of the reasons why translations can be bad and some of the reasons the approvals process can be bad.
We make an English language version of the book. We send it to Japan because they reserve the right to approve. Does the Japanese comic book artist read English? No. Does the original Japanese editor read English? No. So what happens? They find some junior kid in the office who took three semesters of English in college, hand them the book and say "You. You have to read over this and approve it and say if the translation was good".
Well the kid - and I know what it's like having been a translator and I know what it's like to be told this - you get this thing and you're told whether or not to approve it. If you just say "oh it's fine like it is", that looks like you didn't do anything. So you gotta make a change somewhere, you gotta change something. So you pick something that you think sounds good or better or worse in a language you yourself do not speak and you say "oh well you gotta change this."
Yes, that happens and it happens and it's very frustrating because I like to say "Look, I have [name] and [name] are some of the best translators I've ever worked with. We've got good translators, we've got good editors. This is as good as it's going to be." And then they have somebody who does not themselves speak English say "No I want you to say it a different way." That's just kind of frustrating, and everybody in this business has to live with that if they have a strict approvals process.

[Yupa]

Today I received my first cel! Being a member of this forum I figured I should at least know what a cel looks like, so that was the initial reason for me to start looking. I had a few criteria: it had to be from a show that I watched, with matching douga and background and not too expensive. Thanks to Sensei I watched Tenshi ni Narumon and when I saw a cel passing by on Mandarake that fit all the criteria I just had to buy it.

So today I opened my package and the first second I saw the cel it suddenly all made sense. The reason that I wasn't interested in cels before (besides that I haven't seen many anime from before 2000) was that cels in galleries looked just like screenshots. But when I saw the real thing today I immediately understood why many people prefer cels over sketches. I was very impressed at the artwork.

Now don't get your hopes up too high, I understand that this is not a very special cel to most of you, but for me it definately is. It's like my first sketch, at the time I was very impressed but now that I have much more I just call it a rough layout. So without further ado, here is my TnN gallery and I hope you like it.

[D123]

I understand that this is not a very special cel to most of you, but for me it definately is.

Your first cel is always special!! It looks awesome too! Congrats

[Promethium]

But when I saw the real thing today I immediately understood why many people prefer cels over sketches.

Sounds like we have a convert!

Now don't get your hopes up too high, I understand that this is not a very special cel to most of you, but for me it definately is.

What are you talking about?! It's a wonderful cel and I haven't even seen that show!
Getting a nice cel is special but getting it with its original matching background makes it extra special.
(I'd put the background and cel in different cel bags or the cel is going to get stuck to the background eventually )

Looking forward to your 'hybrid' gallery expanding.

[sensei]

The loss of your acetate virginity is always a moment to remember.

But Tennimon was an usually bright and inventive show, so it's an interesting phenomenon that even though Synch Point never did release the whole series in North America, there are a surprising number of collectors who specialize in it. I recall how Otakusin (is she still lurking?) could get very passionate about the subject. The "About" section of her gallery is still quite intense:

My true obsession is Tenshi ni Narumon, which you will come to see. It completely overwhelms any other series I may own. I tend to be a picky collector with series other than Tennimon. Why? Well to be honest when it comes to Tennimon I am blinded with love, they are all hankens in my eyes. And that's that...

Anyhow, the character design/animation direction (by Hitomi Kato) and the art direction (Chikako Shibata) are both top-notch, and those backgrounds are always a treat to get hold of. I always think of Christmas candy when I see one: gumdrops, and ribbon candy and peppermint and cookies.

So congratulations and thanks for giving that bg its separate moment in the sun.

[Yupa]

Thanks for your kind words everyone.

Although they put some kind of thin plastic sheet between the background and the cels that prevented it from getting stuck, the two cel layers do seem to be stuck to each other. I think the best thing to do is just leave it as it is? I did remove the tape on the cels by hand (I know, I won't use that useful bottle of eucalyptus oil ).

Also I have a question about the background, Sensei, you might know this. Although this background is from episode 16, the top right corner states "#17". I think I've seen the same thing in other TnN backgrounds before, the number seems to be one higher than the actual episode. Does this imply there originally was an extra episode that didn't air or did they change the order of the episodes?

[D123]

the two cel layers do seem to be stuck to each other. I think the best thing to do is just leave it as it is?

Yes, I would never try to remove stuck cels. To my knowledge there is no trick to it, trying to remove them will only cause serious damage to the paint + cel

The r/l issue causes all kinds of problems in transliterating from Western languages into katakana.

You know what’s funny I was really thinking about it and there’s quite a bit of error/questioning with character names that have the R’s and L’s