That's just *&^%$* lovely!

Now, now, Gabriel, you're getting a Tasuki mouth!

Sorry, Gabriel! I guess I don't know my own strength... *blushes*

This cel comes from step 15, Something That's Too Far to Reach. In this episode, keeping up the tradition of love at first sight in the family, Sara takes one look at Mikael and falls head over red-booted heels for him.

*ruffles Mikael's hair affectionately* Can you really blame her?

*blushes* Raphael-sama!

And then for some incomprehensible reason she-- with the not so helpful nudging of Muse-- decides that she's not beautiful or thin enough to gain Mikael's attention! She thinks Mikael is interested in Noelle! (Which he is, but not in that way! Can we say, "eww?" Yes, I thought we could.)

*flabergasted* N-Noelle?! *somewhere off stage Noelle sneezes*

Yeah, this isn't Angel Sanctuary!

So Sara begins exercising and dieting like crazy. When Gabriel finds out what is happening (it takes awhile since on pain of Mama's frying pan, men aren't allowed in the girl's bathroom), he is understandably confused. He goes into this big speech about how everyone is different in the world and then ends by smiling directly into her face and saying that she's perfect as she is. And to thank him for his complement, Sara whacks him into the next postal zone.

I didn't hit him that hard!

She sent him flying.

My set-up is the very last cel in the sequence, so that is the final smile on Gabriel's face before he starts earning frequent flyer miles.

*grumbles under breath*

*giggles* Aww, was his wittle macho pride hurtsem?

Watch it, Ruka, you're not Sara!

Bring it on, fangboy!

*innocently pops up while holding frying pan* Did someone call me?

And then Mikael arrives on the scene and it gets even better! He-- oh, go watch the series!

I bought this cel off of Yahoo Japan using my own ID with Celga acting as the middleman. And it only took several months for me to configure the ID properly so that I could bid! (I had to actually set up a whole new ID since my old ID would let me see the ended auctions but it wouldn't let me bid. It kept saying I wasn't old enough. I must have inputed the wrong birthdate originally.) Unfortunately a couple weeks after this, Yahoo Japan instigated their pay per month policy and Celga stopped taking auctions won by other bidders. (Not that it would have helped me any if they had continued since I can't afford to pay Yahoo Japan for access. Yes, it only comes to about a $2.50 charge a month, but that's one cel less a year! Yes, I am a pretty poor college student. )

The cel is three layers thick, C-1(and some hiragana I don't know) is Sara, B-1 end is Gabriel's bald head, and A-5 End is Gabriel's hair and features. Oddly the layers were stapled C-A-B but it appears they were also filmed that way-- otherwise Gabriel's scalp would be on top of his face!

Also included was the original background to the sequence. While the layers were stapled together, they were not stuck so I was able to scan in each layer separately. However, placing all those scans on this page would take forever so here are the links to them. And yes, your eyes are not fooling you, the background is a bit different with every scan. I did that on purpose to make things interesting, yeah, that's right!

And here we have Sara with that lovely vacant I'm-about-to-do-bodily-harm-to-you look upon her face. It seems that the earrings came off with the mid-drift.

And here we have Gabriel looking whole & well (and happily clueless of his fate) with his two layers.

And here is AHHH! Someone scalped Gabriel! Either that or he's gaining Sara's invisiblity powers. (Or partly gaining it, anyway. )

And this is a very iiiiiinteresting cel of Gabriel doing a mannequin impression. Imagine if it had gotten separated from the rest of the set-up!

Below I've included a screengrab of the scene. I was unable to catch my exact cel *mutters about her crappy programs* but you can get the gist.

* A photocopy of the layout sketch with writing all over it.

* A photocopy of a rough sketch with pieces of the Gab layers.

* A rough sketch(or maybe douga?) of a previous Gabriel cel layer. His upper head & body were drawn on one side and his mouth and coloring on the other.

* And here is the sketch from the other side.

* The douga to the faceless Gabriel layer.

* And finally the Sara layer douga.

Whew! And yes, it took forever to scan all these things in! I hope you appreciate all the trouble I go through for y'all!

I could've done without some of that scanning.