The music, the camera angles, the sparkly stuff that surrounded the Outer Senshi as they introduced themselves -- wow!!! I must've rewound that tape dozens of time to that exact spot for the first few months I had it. While I didn't become a Neptune fan until I saw the SS special-- Spoiler! She has such a kick-@$$ line there-- "You don't understand. A world without Haruka is not worth saving..." -- I will always remember Neptune as she was introducing herself in the SS movie.

There weren't many Outer Senshi cels on the internet back then and when my friend pointed this one out at Celmart I instantly fell in love. I didn't recognize it as from the SS introductionary sequence until I actually had it within my hands, but it was still the best Neptune cel I'd seen up to that point. (And still the best for me, as I prefer slightly panned out shots that show the clothes rather then the super facial close-ups.)

Unfortunately, I had zilch money back then. Really. I couldn't even afford the $60 for the cel! So I whined and wailed and tore at my hair and foamed at the mouth until my friend finally offered to loan me the money. Thanks, SW! (Hey, who says whining never does any good?) She also offered to pay for an SS movie cel of Super Sailor Moon throwing her tiara that I had previously botched from Anime Taro (See the full story) but I stupidly declined that.

So the Neptune cel arrived safely at her house (sweet but not a sucker ) and I started the (in)famous Neptune Savings Fund. You don't want to know how long it took me to save up $60 back then. Really. (It took so long my friend forgot about the cel! ) But eventually I did save up enough money to pay her back and the cel was mine! Bwahahahaha!!!

So it's quite a good thing that this Neptune cel satisfies me so much considering I won't be getting many more very soon. Unfortunately my scanner could absolutely not get anywhere near the right color for Neptune/Michiru. For some reason all the blue-greens end up as blue-grays. Just pretend you see a gorgeous turquoise color instead, ne?

The cel is A-78 and comes a little past the mid-way point during Neptune's speech. You can see a tiny bit of Uranus' back over Neptune's left shoulder-- although Uranus looks to be holding her arms very weird here-- behind her back? From some angles it looks like Neptune has three arms! ^^; I particularly like how Neptune's eyes are fully open, her mouth is closed, her hair is billowing in the non-existent wind, and she even has her finger raised to her chin in her trademark move. And the detailing in this cel is very crisp and clear with none of the sloppy lines I've seen from other cels in this sequence. (I believe this is because Neptune is still talking directly into the camera at this point and the zoom back hasn't begun yet.) One day I'll have to try and remove the rice paper that's stuck to the back.