Which came first...?

Which came first, the cels or the addiction to anime?

I used to watch whatever was on tv (*cough*sailormoon*cough*), then my friend showed me Fushigi Yuugi. I searched for images and eventually stumbled upon cels. Then I bought cels.. then I met other cel collectors..then i caught all the updates... THEN my addiction to watching anime began.

It's wierd though. I look at cels from a series and think "ya know.. i like the cel art, I wanna see this".

So for me, it was the cels first. :D

I was going to buy a Christmas DVD for an anime person but I wanted to find out what sucked and what didn't first. I'm the kind of person who personally vouches for the coolness of any toy, video game, or distraction that I give as a gift. (If I ever go to your birthday party, rest assured I will not give you a lame gift certificate or dessert platter or any crap like that. It will always be something cool.)

There was always some anime around but I never paid attention to it. I watched some more anime, and wondered how much it would be to get some production art.

The answer is: it's expensive.



jn

Sometime in the past century, I went by a store that was selling some cels from the Beatles movie Yellow Submarine. They were pricy, but not outrageously so, and I had enough money in my pocket to buy one. And I didn't ... and now cels from that movie go for fancy prices. I could kick myself for turning that down.

So when I became interested in anime through my daughter (a Gundam Wing fan), I thought it would be criminal to let another chance go by, whether or not the cels actually do appreciate in value. And collecting them has given me a much better appreciation of the artfulness with which some anime is executed.

So I'd go with cels first, anime second.

BE

Before collecting cels, I read and collected comic books. One particular book impressed me so much (a friend was kind enough to have the writer/artist do a drawing for me at Comic Con)
that when another friend told me the original art was available for sale and the writer/artist was making an appearance in a NY gallery, I couldn't pass up on that either. I think cels collecting for me is similar, I saw the anime first, purchased a number of different colletibles from the series I liked (posters, keychains, pencilboards, action figures, etc.) then found out cels were available. There's only one series currently I haven't seen that I do collect cels from, Bastard. A number of people mentioned what a kick a-- character Dark Schneider was, I received a very nice cel gift from a friend and added to it.

Flippy

at least for myself, mainly b/c when I started there were NO commercially licensed companies selling anime when I started back in '79 (referring to U.S. not intern'l market). Back then, only fansubs existed and of extremely poor quality. Anyone remember Arctic from the late '80s? Anyways, waaay back then, AX was nonexistent, and there were NO dealers (and no internet as we know it today) openly selling cels from any series. As such, IMHO classic now nostalgic animes such as: Laputa, Nausicaa, Macross DYRL, Urusei Yatsura, Bubblegum Crisis, GunBuster, Kimagure Orange Road, Dangaio, just to name a few, existed only as fansubs. Those were so good memories much like in Otaku no Video, I too am not ashamed to admitting being glued watching fifth (or worse) generation copies. ^_^ Now cels from those classic animes are practically impossible to find and for good reasons, people loved those series and the memories they held for them. But once again, the anime at least in the states, definitely helped myself become much more interested in obtaining cels when they one day did become available. But when I do get a cel from an anime I enjoy, the cel is merely a reminder to myself of the larger enjoyment I obtained from the anime itself.