Cels Forum

     They're right, that cels haven't been released yet.  
However, there have been some reproduction cels released.  
GAINAX made a series of 12 printed "Cellu Club" cels.  
Nichibei had only 4 of them a while back for $50 each.  
Anime Exchange has quite a few right now, ranging from $45 
to $55 each.  And Animanga (Yann's business) should be 
offering some for sale pretty soon, I think.  
     I don't really like the printed cels.  They just 
don't seem as nice as real cels.  However, GAINAX has 
also released six different hand-painted (limited edition?)
reproduction cels.  These cels are just like your original 
production cels, except that it has been produced in an 
edition (not sure how many, but maybe 500, 1000, or so).  
They are created in the same method that is used for 
original production cels, so it looks nice.  (A human traces 
the colored ink lines and paints the cel, not a machine.)  
They don't have backgrounds though.  I'm not sure what all 
six different hand-painted cels look like or how much they 
are selling for.  However, I do have one of them- the cel of
Ritsuko in her lab coat.  It looks nice, and it only cost 
3000Y (in Japan).  I don't know how much the other 5 cels are 
selling for, but this might give you an idea.  Maybe you 
could try and get one of these hand painted cels from Japan.  
(I think stores in the US would sell them for $100 or more 
if they got them.  That's my guess with their added markup.)
It would be a lot cheaper than getting an original 
production cel, if the guy with the connection at GAINAX is 
right.

--Chad Kawakami
  belldandy@cheerful.com
  Cels Resource Guide:
  http://www-scf.usc.edu/~ckawakam/cels/