blog:nattoli, tag:AZ PLAY

VIVID COLOR Tatsuki Amaduyu Illustrations 1995-2010 is the newest solo collection from the well-known BLAZER ONE and LEAF artist. This full color collection showcases Tatsuki Amaduyu's non-commercial art work, with lots of original characters as well as fan art works from Macross Frontier, Neon Genesis Evangelion and more.

CHOCOLATE GOUACHE marks CHOCO's first commercial collection, and it begins with much fanfare sporting decorative packaging along with prints and an art DVD. But when you strip away all the extraneous bits, you'll find you just paid ￥ 6,980 for a 112 page art book---and that's extravagant even for this stunning art book ^^;

CRADLE Misaki Kurehito Illustrations is an impressive collection of the artist's works from 2005 through 2010. As some of you may recall, earlier this year Misaki Kurehito released a doujinshi art book called REW, which also featured illustrations from the same time period. And yet, surprisngly, there isn't a significant overlap between the two art books, and CRADLE is the better book based on print quality alone ^^;

Aoi Nishimata Illustrations VIVID is aptly titled, as the first impression I had of the book was that it was marvelously colorful, with its decorated characters ranging from school girls, to princesses to angels ^^ As the first commercial illustration only collection from Aoi Nishimata, VIVID does an excellent job of showcasing her work over the years, without concentrating extensively on any one time period. Instead, outstanding art works from all years were included, going as far back as the year 2000.

Aoi Nishimata Illustrations Nocturne was the second doujinshi art book Nishimata released via her circle Joker Type for Comiket 72. Up until the release of her commercial art book, VIVID, this was really the most recent collection of Nishimata's illustrations. There have been other commercial productions, but none that were all illustrations.

Shizuma Yoshinori, whose fame can probably be linked directly to Pixiv, released his first illustration doujinshi for Comiket 78. Shizuma Drive: 0 is a very short collection of some of the artist's most popular works, but that unfortunately also means the illustrations won't be new to most people.

Moeru iPhone Reader, released December 14th, is the newest in the ever growing series of artist collections featuring girls using some kind of everyday item. Moeru's iPhone Reader is great advertising for Apple---an iPhone is prominently placed with every girl---so the individual aspects of the illustration focus on the app being showcased, and how the girl is using (or not using) it.

HIME-CHARA ☆ DESIGNERS FILE is a directory of fairly well-known commercial illustrators that design the anime, game, and manga characters we've all come to know and love. The art book features a remarkable 111 artists, but much like last years 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting each artist gets two pages, one full page illustration and one with smaller tiled art works.

Kaedena Akino's summer Comiket 78 release Hana Koi comes hot on the heels of her last illustration doujinshi, Bubble Light from Comiket 77. And yet, it manages to showcase a real growth in illustration style between the two books. The theme of Hana Koi is of course flowers, and all of the girls depicted are accompanied by flowers and sometimes dressed to imitate them.

Ayami Kojima is probably best known as the artist for the last decade of Castlevania video games. Unlike many artists nowadays, she still works with real media, meaning the art works contained in Santa Lilio Sangre were all originally stroked and etched onto canvases with acrylics, pens, and pencils before they ever made their way into this art book.

Soundgirl DUO is the commercial realization of the previously reviewed doujinshi Soundgirl - Onkyou Shoujo-. There is no illustration overlap between the two books, but several of the artists featured in the original book contribute at least one illustration each to Soundgirl DUO. This second book came out November 30th and retails for ￥1800.

Soundgirl - Onkyou Shoujo- is a collection along the same vein as Digital Camera Girl, featuring product information alongside an illustration of a girl using the product. In all honesty, this book that didn't come out during a convention would have escaped my attention if it hadn't been for the beautiful preview illustrations featuring Yoshizuki Kumichi's art works.