SPLASH ONE Jiji Art Works is a beautiful collection of Mecha Musume that have appeared in the MC☆AXIS (MC☆あくしず) magazine since the start in 2006. MC☆AXIS is a self-styled moe military magazine, and Jiji's illustrations have always been my favorite from the genre, right there along with Shimada Humikane's works.

It may sound like a simple thing, but one of my favorite aspects of Jiji's illustrations are his lightly colored outlines, which really open up the illustrations making the Mecha Musume girls fit more seamlessly into their environments.

SPLASH ONE Jiji Art Works retails for ￥2940 and is 130-pages long. It's full color all the way through, and entirely art work. The image publication information is included next to--and occasionally on--each illustration which eliminates the need for an index.

The oldest art work in the book only dates back to around 2006, which is a good thing because it's Jiji's more recent work that has the cute factor completely mastered. Though I haven't reviewed them yet, you can see his older style art work in some of the older Magi-Cu Illustrations art books.

Even though MC☆AXIS is a "moe" military magazine, there are still aspects that are just military, so expect to see a few illustrations of planes, and space ships without girls ^^ There's also a page or two with full-on mechanized robots. There are only 8-pages in total with military machines that don't include Mecha Musume.

There are also a few girls who've forgotten their tops SPLASH ONE Jiji Art Works towards the end of the art book, from Jiji's doujinshi and COMIC Aun (阿吽), which is definitely not a magazine for kids ;P Though there aren't many two-page spreads in the book, the ones that are there are printed with a small amount of overlap, so none of the images are cut off by the book binding.

SPLASH ONE Jiji Art Works ends with 8 pages of mini-comics that ran in MC☆AXIS. For me, this is a great art book. Its focus on Jiji's newer works along with so many gorgeous Mecha Musume just make it a must have in my opinion.

---

• Title: SPLASH ONE Jiji Art Works
• タイトル: SPLASH ONE じじ アートワークス
• Pages: 130
• Release date: 04/30/2010
• Buy: Amazon.co.jp