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Where do retailers get cels these days?
I recently moved to Japan and was pretty stoked that I'd be in cel central again. I spent a summer in Nagoya in 2001 going through the endless cel bins in Mandarake, scoring tons of awesome cels for dirt cheap prices. However, I've been to the two Mandarakes in Osaka (where I am now) and one had NO cels and the other had a pathetic paltry selection of crap/near crap and not even anything fancy on display.
Has the cel market really dried up so much? I know most shows are made digitally now, but it's hard to believe there aren't still tons of cels just floating around out there. Where the heck are cel dealers getting cels these days?
It's been our experience cel dealers are largely done with cels, especially from older popular series from the 80s-90s, like Macross, GunBuster, Kimagure Orange Road, Urusei Yatsura, Maison Ikkoku, etc. Also, many dealers closed down and stopped business entirely. This should not be a surprise to anyone whose been collecting or even window shopping. The older cel market is pretty much lifeless, unless you count the very limited resale scraps on evilbay, Yahoo JP and Mandarake. Times have completely changed for cel collectors for older series.
Edited Jun 18 at 2:30 PM
Guess it depends on what you collect.
It seems that certain Japanese resellers still have access to lots of great artwork from time to time.
It comes in waves, likely as batches of artwork get released by collectors/studios who have decided to move on.
We've seen a LOT of interesting stuff come up between 2008 and now, and it's only starting to slow down.
Angelic-Lair
Apr 11 at 7:53 AM
Yeah, Mandarake Osaka is not where you go for cels. I went there in 2008 and saw that it was largely a cosplay store. Nakano probably has the best selection when it comes to cels, but even then, it's not that great.
As has been mentioned above, that's where the majority of artwork comes from. Most studios burn their art works; a couple of the studio staff I've spoken with have mentioned that they hold on to it for a few years and then burn it. For newer productions, what makes it out of the studios is smuggled out by staff and then brought to art resellers who will list it on auction.
Most collectors have moved on to paper items, whether that be the production artwork making its way out of studios or sketches drawn and signed by various mangaka and animators. Some of the prices that various doujinshi artists can command is astounding. These sketches are often much more pricey than those from character designers and other anime production staff.
Here's a REALLY nice selection of GitS cels. Pricey, but some of the best stuff we've ever seen, and it has only become really available in the past year or two: https://www.rinkya.com/en/selling-list-cddvdlp
Angelic-Lair
Apr 25 at 8:13 PM