#revolutionary girl utena art

[empty-movement]

OLD SCHOOL ANIMATION NERDS, I SUMMON THEE TO ASSIST

Hey! Vanna here! So I recently, in a rage at the loss of the end-of-series lot of production materials, bought a cheaper lot I had been curious about, and I kinda struck animation history gold with it! Try as I might to pull the whole context together, I need y'alls help accurately naming and identifying what I have!!! There are MANY MORE of these, all from the same episode, an Utena one, a LOT of Nanami, and a group shot even, all following this similar formula. But let's be honest, Vanna and Yasha wanted that sweet Touga smugness. Analysis and questions below the cut! These aren't ALL the sheets, there are ones for the face shape and sleeve also but to demonstrate. Also, fucking amazingly, I also have the storyboards for this episode, so I can even tell you the shot number is 287 ISNT THAT COOL

So Utena fans. You may or may not know, but episodes 6 and 8 had very chaotic productions, and did end up getting swapped in the end. Per Ikuhara's directory commentary in the Nozomi Blu-ray:

He makes explicit reference here to Akemi Hayashi, credited as the animation director for the episode. I can't recall where I saw it now, but I know the difficulty of drawing Touga on model is mentioned somewhere in all the production stuff I have.

Now. Here's the problem. I DON'T FUCKING KNOW WHAT THEISIWEUGWEYGF what do I callll these. My understanding is the the douga is the final line art, transferred onto the cel, and that is the only thing that you call a douga. A douga is the 1:1 match to its cels in a sequence. With an anime like Utena, it's pretty often going to be included with the cel, if you obtain one. These are douga, the final line art that creates the animation, scans donated by JadeSabre and edited into sequence. The frames are numbered in the top right, and there are no notes or anything drawn on the sheets.

Now. That is NOT what I have above. So none of these materials are douga, they are...genga? Help? (This will get wild with Nanami, where I even have a green sketch that is clearly like, VERY FIRST draft of the shot...)

What I have are the key frames, to my understanding. Meaning these represent a point much earlier in the production process. On first glance, the white sheets are significantly cleaner, but they are also so far off model they're flying along with the Voyager probes in interstellar space. They're very capably drawn, don't get me wrong, but they're clearly done by someone who is not on the Dorito face bandwagon. This is apparently pretty common? You get your initial key frame sketches (genga??) made, and then the animation direction (Hayashi??) grades your work by making messier, but more on model versions of the shots. These are the yellow 'correction' genga?

The douga of this shot are likely with the cels. There are 11 distinct cels of Touga's face (others for the sleeve), guided by the 4 key frame sketches I have here. Looked at individually, I can even see where the filled in frames struggle a bit more to be on model than the key ones, even in the final product.

So clearly, what I have are some pretty early process materials where there was a bit of a back and forth about how to draw the characters. The others I have are similar corrections, but this is the absolute most drastic one. It's like they said 'just do it like kinda shoujo and we'll iron it out later.'

The question I have is...can I safely assume these yellow correction sheets are actually Akemi Hayashi originals? Or would there have been another person in this process doing this correction work instead? Would there be a way to know who drew the original ?genga? That may not be possible to ascertain, but it would be really cool to try, since this episode was a Chaos Production, since I have the actual storyboard for it, since I now have a neat piece of context about what the Chaos might have meant. This shot always stuck out to me in the first arc, because it's true that for a lot of the first arc, Touga and Saionji look....far more like the first drafts here. The strict adherence to the Hasegawa style gets enforced later in the series, but this is an example of the exchange that needed to occur to get folks on board with what was a pretty unique art style.

PS. This is torture, the shape of these means I actually need to make two scans of each one and stitch them together, which is nervewracking when you want them to overlap properly and also you don't want to wreck your toilet paper ass production materials pressing them into the scanner bed. Also several are fucking taped together and lemme tell you, 25 year old 'clear tape' don't stay clear and don't stay sticky.

Basically, any context or knowledge anyone can impart I would appreciate a lot! I know I've got something really cool here, but I am struggling to get much clear information about it, because Google is broken.

[gokib3]

ID in alt text

[paperkoifish]

A new revolution

[projectorthus]

It’s been a while since I drew Her.

[zozoubbb]

i fucking love revolucionary girl utena

[staff]

Tumblr Tuesday: Women Loving Women in Art

It's Lesbian Visibility Week, an excellent time to be celebrating women who love women. Give it up for the sapphics, their muses, and the gorgeous art that honors them.

@greenfinchg:

@ripleylarue:

@femmegrey:

@mimimar:

@onzze:

@yinza:

@emiuli:

@flora-valleyy:

@karlovycross:

@circusbutch:

@jaxalope:

@drizzledrawings:

@suwisuwii:

@gibbarts:

@bearybutch:

[flapjacked69]

time to eat!

(click for quality)

[xamag-draws]

[Utena] a single perpetual motion machine

[hyphose]

Wakaba Shinohara, Nanami Kiryuu, Juri Arisugawa - Utena, la fillette révolutionnaire

There it is, a triptych of my favorite duels from each season, and coincidentally my favorite characters.

[yiranntofu]

The aspiring prince and the rose bride

[arielluva]

midsummer’s night dream redraw/study/whatever but its utenanthy

original reference under cut

[empty-movement]

Help Empty Movement Help You

Hey! Vanna here. I'm going to get to the point. There have been a rash of sales of Utena production materials that have gone for ludicrous sums, and I have won none of them. This sucks, because at this point, this is stuff I'd be scanning for Something Eternal, sure, but also, for the fucking Internet Archive. When I ask for help, it's because I want to contribute to the Utena museum, which I try to share as freely as possible. Y'all know the drill.

....But I'm gonna be fucking selfish here. Help me. I fucking need these. You need to remember.....

Akio is my favorite character.

My personal g-mail STILL HAS HIS FULL NAME IN IT. Forgive me this sin, and for a moment, consider...

I have this one cel. I cherish it for many reasons. It's a calm before a storm. It's his last little pretense of being a gentleman. And then he gets shoved the fuck off, in the face, full offense, in one of the most satisfying moments in the show, and I mean this as an Akio fan.

I mean, I like the character, I'm fascinated with him, etc....but no one else in the world is going to appreciate ownership of the fucking production materials of him getting shoved in the face like I will I KNOW YOU KNOW THAT ;_;

Just fuckin' help me, idk, there's Patreon, there's PayPal (emptymovement), there's the drop ship merch (I make very little off these tho tbh they're just kinda neat things I've made), there's sending me cursed pirate gold literally whatever I fucking need these so much, and that's not even to speak of the literal fucking series icon moments in this lot that I do, seriously, believe belong in a museum and would at least digitize them that way and make considerations for where they'd be safest long term

I'm so serious this is fucking history and I trust myself to ensure its survival better than whoever else is gonna bid just hekofeygfwefgqlufgew kufgwed

[gokib3]

She did nothing wrong!!! ID in alt text

[mekarerr]

Revolutionize the world⚔️🌹

[projectorthus]

She’s The Worst

[vickychendraws]

why did this life drawing sesh have me feeling feelings 😭 (the models' poses omg...)