I don't care if the figures are tiny, I'm sent into a cascade of giggles every time I think about this scene. (Although a close-up of Raphael winking at Mikael during this scene is in the top tier of my wish list. ) It's from step 19, the (in)famous yakiimo (sweet potato) episode. Raphael & Mikael are watching the yakiimo-pulling duel between Eros & Ruka from on high when Raphael asks Mikael who he thinks will win. (And, aww, lookit Mika's lil fingers clutching at the air where the building beam should be! Yes, I am strange. ) Mikael replies that he believes machines have an advantage and we get this lovely exchange. As you can see from the screengrab below, my cel comes right during the point where Raphael is initially proposing the bet.

Mikael is a weenie, however, and instead of accepting the bet he tells Raphael that it's obscene. (And my mom comments, upon being shown the cel, that Raphael is wearing an awfully sexy suit for an angel. I haven't the heart to tell her what is really going on in the scene. My cel-collecting friend says I should save it and just spring it on her one day. )

Why do I have the feeling that either way I would have lost?

Oh, I'd prefer to think that either way you would've won! Don't you at least want to know what I was gonna bet?

No! Most certainly not! *Raphael whispers in his ear and he turns yet another shade of pink* Ra-raphael-sama!

*slips arm around Mikael and they exit, stage right*

And you wonder why it's taking over a year to get my Tenshi ni Narumon site up?

Anyway, I got this cel as part of this huge $350 package from Yahoo Japan. I'd been previously using Celga to bid for me but when a set of naked Mikael cels popped up on YJ and someone else beat me to Celga-- well, I just couldn't let it go at that! So I managed to scrounge up another deputy service and when I won the naked Mikas (featured on my Keeper of Chaos page!) I decided to put in a ... *cough*... few other bids on the lovely Tenshi ni Narumon cels that were cropping up.

And once I laid my eyes upon this cel I just had to have it. I was hoping that no one else would recognize it or want it (Raphael cel prices were truly outrageous at the time) since the figures were so small, but this, alas, was not to be case. (And, alas, this is the closest to a full figure Raphael I have so far! Need more cels! ) It could have been worse-- but it could have been better too. My bet cel cost me 9750 yen to win the auction. And actually it was part of a lot that included a cel of Yuusuke on the stairway to heaven (looking up at Mikael, the pair which I received as a freebie cel with another lot in the package!) and one of Eros twitching about in front of Silky's glowing drawer. Not that the other two cels entered into the equation at all. And then about a month later another lot sold for 3500 yen that included cels from the same sequences as mine. (And I almost bid on it too, but I decided not to be overly greedy. ) But I like my bet cel better, since Raph & Mika are actually looking at each other in my cel and are caught right in the midst of their talk. (Really, I do! 6800 yen better! Woo hoo!)

Unfortunately it took over three months to actually get the package-- and boy was I biting my fingernails, especially over this cel. (Luckily my credit card wasn't charged until after the cels had shipped, so I wasn't worried about losing the money. But dangit, I want cels, not money! ) This package was so worth the wait-- and the weight! It cost $40 to be shipped via Three Day Confirmed EMS! (Of course the post office took longer then three days.) However, this was the best cel package I'd ever gotten, so it was also worth the price tag. The cels were even kept in their original mailers, so I got to see the kinds of packaging used on Japanese domestic mail! The original packaging to this lot was covered in writing and pictures, including a really kawaii black & white drawing of some kind of Miyazaki(?) looking creatures. Too bad I was in such a hurry to open it that I ripped the pic.

The first thing I saw upon ravenously ripping open the package was my bet cel-- tinted green-- greeting my eyes. Apparently the seller included a free green transparent folder when shipping the cels. Ah, what a sight for sore eyes! (And the second thing I saw was my vulture Raph sketch... but that's a story for another page.) Mmm... *rubs face against bet cel-- hmm, considering that it didn't come in a celbag maybe I'd better not do that.

As I'm already working on several custom backgrounds to my cels, I'd really love to have the original background to this or a copy of it since Raphael & Mikael appear to be talking in mid-air as it is. The cel itself was scanned (unfortunately this is one of the worse scans color-wise, it looks like my boys spent too much time in the tanning bed!) against the solid blue background that came with my dragon Magic Knight Rayearth cel; and its layers, which are stabled together, are A-4 (Mikael) and C-4 (Raphael). I wonder what was the B-layer? The beam they were sitting/standing on? Shadows?