blog:nattoli, tag:touhou

Shigeto Koyoma is probably better known for his mechanical designs in shows like Star Driver Kagayaki no Takuto or the ending sequence for Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt than as the character designer for HEROMAN. But HEROMAN's Joey Jones holds a special place in his heart, and for that he released YELLOW, even though it was rumored that "making doujinshi for the show was prohibited."

NATSUHIME is the successor to the now defunct GELATIN Magazine, offering basically exactly the same thing but with more nudity and racy comics. Judging from this first volume, it seems like it's going to head even more in that direction; half of the comics feel like they were intended for the June issue of GELATIN that was canceled at the last minute, and just don't fit the new more adult theme.

For some reason, I was prepared to not like Indico Lite Key ― Mitha Illustrations mostly because I anticipated there would be an abundance of older illustrations since this is Mitha's first art book. So I would venture to say that it's actually a pretty good art book overall, though it could be the case of a combination of lowered expectations with mediocrity.

Queen's Blade continues to push the envelope with the release of it's newest art book, Vanquished Queens. Vanquished Queens consists entirely of new illustrations of the Queen's Blade girls getting owned, all by the original character artists for each girl.

In Megami Magazine's Girls Whom Girls Draw we have a unique collection of fifty-three notable female artists who all illustrate (and some even prefer illustrating) beautiful girls. While some artists are more known than others, everyone contributed brand new works to this gallery, making for a rather impressive art book.

Takayama Toshiaki is probably best know as a game card illustrator, and his style is quite deeply ingrained into that genre. T.com Toshiaki Takayama Illustration File Vol. 01 includes a mix of original illustrations, fan arts, and commercial re-publications in Takayama's painted fantasy style.

My initial reaction after browsing through Kantoku's second art book, titled STEP Kantoku Art Works, was that I should really stop purchasing his doujinshi. This isn't a testament to it being a bad art book, on the contrary, it's excellent. But it does mean that much of the contents from this book (as well as the last one) were initially published in his doujins.

It's always a tough call when buying something with a subtitle of "visual fan book." There doesn't seem to be any one definition for it, and they can have anywhere from a few to a lot of illustrations. Thankfully, A CHANNEL.ZIP Visual Fan Book was one of those that had a lot of illustrations... though not as much as a normal art book.

Tactics Ogre Arts Works is a nicely presented and very well-made art book. Content-wise though, it quickly feels repetitive, with page after page of character art works on white backgrounds. To be fair, this is the norm for game art books, and I've just probably been away from them for too long ^^;

Umakoshi Yoshihiko TOEI Animation Works came out in late July and focuses on Umakoshi's works from HeartCatch PreCure!, Ojamajo Doremi, and Marie & Gali. The art book includes color illustrations along with monochrome character line arts and key animation sequences.

Nabeshima Tetsuhiro's dedication to Touhou continues with his Comiket 79 release Toho Antique. The illustration theme focuses on the items each of the Touhou girls are often pictured with. Unlike some of Nabeshima Tetsuhiro's other releases, the illustrations have a very finished look, and feature most of the main Touhou girls.

Ayakura Juu Illustrations Spice and Wolf marks the first art book by the artist, and the most comprehensive collection of Spice and Wolf art work to date. The slip on book obi boasts an incredible 400 illustrations, and while technically true, that's counting a lot of back cover pictures of apples and coins along with small monochrome thumbnails into that total. In fact, if you also purchased Rainbow Spectrum: Colors Haimura Kiyotaka Illustrations you'll experience a slight sense of déjà vu as the two books utilise a rather similar layout to bring together the monochrome and color works from the light novels and other media. But Spice and Wolf does it better on the whole.