Official Evangelion Reproduction Cels?

[Charon]

Does anyone have a list or pictures of the official limited edition Evangelion reproductions w/ douga that were released during Comiket 2000/2001?(An example being here). EDIT : And this is where they were originally sold on the Gainax website, although unfortunately the Internet Archive doesn't have the actual pictures archived. (So, six possible cels from episode 24.)

These aren't the more common machine produced Cellu-club cels or the handpainted sericels seen here, and I'm having a heck of a time trying to dig up references to them now. (D'oh, should have paid more attention to them back then!)

Or more specifically, is this Kaworu cel one of them? (ＯＰ（オープニング用）カラーコピーのセル画＆動画になります。 以前、アニメ製作の関係者の方に譲って頂いた非常に貴重なコピーの品物になります。 Evangelion - Kaworu Nagisa - OP (For Opening) Cel & Animated Picture Color Copy. Previously a copy is very valuable goods handed over to thank the participants who animated. ??? )

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Quacker]

Hi Charon,

I too have been trying to hunt down a full listing of what was released back then for about 6/7years now! The Framed Rei reproduction cel was the FIRST legitimate piece I had seen come up on YHJ in that time period. True, the seller had listed it for a quick 24hour period only so there is every chance I may have missed earlier releases if they had done the same.

From my limited knowledge, Gainax first released this Cel series at the December Comiket 2000/01 with the release to coincide with the Death & Rebirth and End of Evangelion movie releases. Supposedly so the story goes that the pieces were to officially go on sale to the general public at midday. But for whatever reason the Cels were displayed straight away even before the crowds were let in; maybe provide the other artists, studios & store-vendors the chance to view the pieces before it got too busy? In any case a vast majority of these were virtually snapped-up then & there by the other artists & store owners, leaving only a small percentage of the original batch available to the public and even then, the remaining cels were purchased throughout the morning. Only a very small amount of the Cels were kept to be sold through the website.

Since the purchase of the Rei cel, as luck would have it, I have noticed a few other pieces have started to pop-up: one was put up for auction recently via Mandarake's 'Big Web Auction' - a Rei cel from 'Death & Rebirth' and there was a Misato Hanken that very recently sold on YHJ and have heard some go through via Private treaty/sales. There are pieces floating around, you just need to keep your eyes peeled & be ready to pounce!! Depending upon the cel, the average asking price now is around the 50,000yen mark.

[Charon]

Thanks for the further information, Quackers!

I'm still going through the 800,000+ hits that "複製" "セル" "エヴァンゲリオン" (Reproduction, Cel, Evangelion) brings up on Google (and unfortunately a lot of them link to broken images *shakes fist*) but I managed to dig up this Yahoo Japan auction for a catalog that lists the 33 reproduction cels.

The scans are pretty small, but it's at least something. I'm hoping someone, somewhere has better scans of the reproductions available though. I'm broke after purchasing the Kaworu cel (which turns out wasn't one of the repros... I'm kind of surprised at the images they chose of him there), otherwise I'd be tempted to try and get the catalog myself, especially after finding a scan of a reproduction cel that has been removed from its matting and frame.

Apparently (just to be as confusing as possible, thanks Gainax!) those particular reproductions came with sequence numbers & registration holes like the real production cels. So, it would be really nice to have the close-up scans of the repros which show their sequence numbers.