ERASE!!!
Source: TV
Layers: 1
Sketches: 1
Cel Number: B10 END
Oversize, 15.5W x 10.5H
End Cel
No Background
Added 9/11/2002
Updated 9/13/2022
|
|
Episode: 52 (Sakura’s Sheep Warning): Hoeee!!! Eriol has lured Sakura into a big hole in the ground and then dumped a ton of stuffed sheep dolls on top of her! (One of these bizarre but oddly compelling plot moments that make me think of lucid dreaming.) Not to worry, though: Sakura riffles through her pack, pulls out The Erase (next to Shadow, the scariest of her cards), and flips it into the air, making all the sheep plushies vanish into thin air. Sequence number: B10 END.
This beautiful oversized pan cel shows off both her “sheep trap costume” and also the scary intensity that Sakura summons when she uses the cards.
Sensei Check!
This cel was my first “second chance” win. It originally showed up on eBay in June 2001, and I looked at it longingly, but, alas, I didn’t have the funds at that time to be competitive in the bidding, so it went to a collector who called herself Cherry Snow. She had one of the best online CCS galleries at the time, with some spectacular Yukito and Yue cels.
At odd moments, however, she’d put up items that weren’t central to her collection for sale, and so, in August 2002, she sent around an email to people who had previously bought from her, inviting them to look at her sale page.
As it happens, I was on vacation, off to Lake Ontario for a week without TV, radio, phone, or Internet. On arriving home, about 6 PM, I downloaded my mail, as usual, to sort through and toss out the trash.
Among the messages was the notice for Cherry Snow’s private sale: I visited her site, and there it was, among other treasures -- the pan cel I’d coveted. Then I checked the time she’d sent out her notice, said, "Oh hell, these are all gone already," went downstairs, and got supper in the oven.
While I was doing so, suddenly I stopped, said to myself, "Ya damn fool!" and ran back upstairs to send Cherry Snow a reply. Sometimes the celga no kami are kind: no one had put it on hold yet, and so it was mine after all.
Cherry Snow eventually dispersed her wonderful collection, and I was lucky enough to get some of my loveliest Yukitos and Yues from her, most notably the lovely cel of Yukito and Kero-chan from the closing moments of the second movie.
At the same time as I bought the pan cel above, I got another of Yukito playing basketball, which Vamppire, another avid CCS collector (not to be confused with Vampyreshoujo), coveted so much and so piteously that I finally resold it to her.
Vamppy remembered the favor, and much later on, as she moved from cel collecting to another avocation, she loosened her grip on the cel of hers that I most coveted, a set of Yuki-Saba and Cinder-Touya.
It all goes to show: sometimes a cel that you wish for finally does find its way to you. But in reviewing my correspondence with these two friends and (alas) former cel collectors, I see that this happens through unexpected chances, helped by faith, patience, and good collecting karma.
You'll notice the odd pinkish coloring in the curly "bib" under Sakura's chin. At first I thought that this might be caused by another paint leaching through from underneath, and it was surprising to see that there was no layer of paint lying over this part of the cel on the back. The shift in color, then, was caused by some instability in the paint used.
In my patient watching of CCS auctions, I've spotted two close sequence-mates to this cel that have since sold on Yahoo Japan.
 
The first cel , clearly marked "B7," sold in January 2022, and the second one (I think the "B8," as I can spot one more frame between it and my "B10 END") sold in May 2010.
The dealer's scan of this second cel clearly shows the same color shift in the bib. The other one does not, but in this frame most of the bib is hidden by Sakura's hand. So I think the issue may have been there when the cels were painted, or emerged soon afterwards. In any case, in the two decades since I took possession of the cel, this color shift has not gotten worse. Still, a dramatic image, one of my most cherished.
Click to open in new window
|
|
8.82/10 
9.47/10
9.03/10 
84 votes