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True to my screen name, I’m a teacher, a college professor to be specific. I’ve taught on the college level since 1973, mostly entry-level writing courses, but I have offered as many courses in folklore and world mythology as my various employers could justify. I’ve written some books and lots of articles on fairy tales, contemporary legends, and superstitions.
After my retirement from full-time teaching, my wife and I recently moved house from the area of the Northeast US where I'd lived for nearly a quarter of a century to a development so remote from the rest of the world that we simply call it “Cephiro.”
I became interested in Japanese anime in 1999-2000 thanks to the enthusiasm my teenage daughter had for adventure-oriented series like Gundam Wing and Slayers. To her amusement, while she developed interests in Cowboy Bebop and similar series, I became much more interested in mahou shoujo plots, because I could see the strong influence of folklore in these story lines.
My first cel (from Cardcaptor Sakura ) came to me from eBay in July 2000, and for several years I specialized in art from this series almost exclusively. As I learned more about anime and art, though, my tastes broadened, and, starting in 2004, I started collecting from a wider range of shows. However, I’d have to say that I remain committed to the mahou shoujo genre, while adding to it art from other series that are strongly influenced by legend or folktale.
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I'm a scholar, so I annotate the items I collect. When I can, I say what is going on at this exact moment. This may include plot spoilers, but since animation art represents images in motion, it’s impossible to appreciate a single “frozen” picture without knowing what came before and what’s to come next. In addition, when I’m aware of a sequence-mate in another online gallery, I include a link.
As I’ve become more interested in the animation process, I’ve begun to collect sketches more avidly. Cels are more compelling as art objects, but sketches record the moment when these images came into being. Also, cels are often executed in sweatshop conditions by a "paint-by- numbers" method, but sketches show the pencil strokes of a master artist at the moment of creation.
As series moved from cel-based to CGI, these sketches became more significant. So I’ve tended to collect these creased and smudged work drawings rather than the more brilliant custom-made rilezu cels that have appeared for some series.
I always provide some kind of background when I scan cels. When I don't get a production background, I play with art paper mats that I pick up in the scrapbooking section of a craft stores. It’s fun to see what kind of background the cel “likes” (often they change expression subtly when I hit on just the right color or texture). And since cels were designed to fit colored settings, art paper shows them off better than the backside of a scanner lid.
Some other collectors Photoshop digital backgrounds, which do the same trick, but I stubbornly stick to a real paper mat. I prefer scans that represent what the object would really look like if you saw it in my cel book, rather than a manipulated image that suggests a screen capture. For the same reason, I sometimes give a complete scan of the cel sheet, with the ragged or partially painted edges, as they really appear if you saw it.
I include “extras” with the art that I display: dougas for cels, as well as screen caps, parallel images from manga, layouts, rough sketches, alternative versions, and so on. For CGI series, I nearly always include two “extras” for every sketch that I “feature.”
When I go off on a tangent, I’ll use this icon:
SENSEI CHECK!
This adds cultural background or plot information, or sometimes a personal comment on why this scene is especially meaningful.
Watch out for:
Caution! Fussy Notes
This is where I get into the minutia of animation details that interest hard-bitten collectors but (probably) not the casual visitor.
I share the same birthday as (Cardcaptor) Sakura’s sensei-father Kinomoto Fujitaka, who gives his motto in one episode: “Rather than keeping something you enjoy to yourself, it's more fun to let everyone know about it, right?”
Right.
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