The first thing I thought upon opening up CIRCUS 10th Visual Album was... MOONSTONE Complete Illustrations. It's amazing how completely similar the two are organized, right down to page layouts and section headings. Both books were originally slated to release last year in December, but in the end only MOONSTONE met that deadline. But now I can see the reason for the most likely reason for the delay in CIRCUS 10th Visual Album's release: the print quality.

The newest book in the Queen's Blade series came out at the end of last month, on April 30th. Though I don't always buy Queen's Blade books, I do buy them when they feature artists I like which in this case is Hiiro Yuki. For a sample of his work outside of Queen's Blade, check out my review of his Comiket 77 release,

I'm laughing just typing that title. Yoiko no Moecco! Imouto Pantsu ONLY is a ￥1300 mook (magazine book) featuring the illustrations of 44 different artists on the always popular theme of "imouto pantsu." There's a real mix of old favorites as far as artists go, with some new up and coming artists who I'm starting to see more and more often in magazines like Dengeki MOEOH and E☆2 (Etsu).

The artist with a long name has opted for an even longer title on his C77 full color illustration doujinshi release, Kurokami Shoujo to Wafuku ga Suki na Hito no Hon! (黒髪少女と和服が好きな人のほん!) which is still in stock months after the event on Toranoana ^^ This wasn't really a stand out doujinshi for me, but I was reminded of it when I noticed Tenmu Shinryuusai's new COMIC1☆4 release.

Dengeki Daioh GENESIS is a new comic-focused magazine that comes out quarterly like Gelatin. The first issue came out January 2010, and also like Gelatin the comics featured inside are original, and oftentimes meant to be "one shot" features done by popular artists. But unlike Gelatin, this phone-book thick magazine includes only monochrome comics. So why the interest? The original magazine exclusive posters by artists like Redjuice and Kishida Mel, of course.

Truthfully, I didn't like Hatsune Miku GRAPHICS Vocaloid Art & Comic when it first arrived amidst many better art books at the beginning of March. But having been recently reminded of it, I decided to have another look through to see how I was feeling about it. I'm slightly more appreciative of the new and exclusive art works done for the collection, but for the most part I still feel like art book really lacks focus and even quality consistency from page to page.

Though Peco is probably best known for being the original designer of the characters from the newly animated series Mayoi Neko Overrun!, his just released art book Peco Artworks - Peco no Kiseki shows us that his talents in illustrating go far beyond what is presented with that series.

I always tell myself, I'm not going to buy anymore doujinshi from Ito Noizi at the start of each Comiket. I think I've forgotten the reason why... oh wait, it's because no matter what she releases, it will be expensive. Noizi Collection "H" Specialty 2001-2009 wasn't an exception to that rule, but it was definitely worth it, with a 100-page (covers counted) full color collection that was more of an art book than a doujinshi.