When the To Love-Ru (とらぶる) manga series finished its run last year, you just knew an art book would be sure to follow. And several months later, we get To Love-Ru Illustrations Love Color, a 98-page full color collection of the manga illustrations that includes nearly all of the color art works published for the series along with a few newly drawn ones as well.

The art book includes a one-sided triple length fold-out poster featuring Lala, Nana and Momo all barely covered by bath bubbles which was drawn new for the book. The cover art is also new, as is the under the slip cover art which features all the cover girls in their underwear.

One of the highlights for me about the To Love-Ru manga is the character designs by Yabuki Kentaro. I loved them also when they were all in Black Cat, but that never got an art book ;D One of the things I didn't like was the inclusion of so many of the colored manga pages, straight from the comic with text and everything. There were 12 in total, occupying a full page each. But then again, every illustration occupied at least a full page, so I guess that aspect was more important in the presentation.

To Love-Ru Illustrations Love Color really is page after page of gorgeous illustrations. The print quality is high, and you're only going to spot the DPI if you're looking for it. For some reason, the print quality in manga illustration collections tends to be higher than anime art collections, though it's probably because of the need for greater color detail in manga art.

There's also a "sealed" section included in this art book. In the photo above, you can see you'd have to literally cut it open in order to see the art work inside. Lucky for you all, I don't shy away from doing that kind of thing ^^ After all, you only live once!

Though that doesn't mean I'm going to show you everything ^^; This 8-page section is all newly drawn for the art book and features Rito Yuuki's memories and imaginings of the series heroines. Lots of very sexy illustrations in that section, with good reason to be sealed off!

After the "sealed" section, the art work continues with the illustrations for covers 9 through 16, along with merchandise art works. The illustrations finish at page 90, leaving room for a three page interview with Yabuki Kentaro and a two page thumbnail index.

Oh, and here's the example of what I mentioned earlier: the outer slip cover has the girls in their clothes, and when you remove the slip cover, everyone's wearing underwear! ^^ It's always nice when they make good use of the under cover.

Amusingly, the final page of the art book is a slightly different kind of paper, and includes a "paper doll" of Rito's sister Mikan. Now that's something I wouldn't consider cutting out ^^; Mostly because I wouldn't even know what to do with it. Whether you're a fan of the series or not, To Love-Ru Illustrations Love Color is a really definitive and high quality work of Yabuki Kentaro's illustrations from the series and would likely please any collector.

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• Title: To Love-Ru Illustrations Love Color
• タイトル: To LOVEる-とらぶる-画集らぶから!
• Release Date: 12/2009
• Pages: 98
• Buy: Amazon Japan