CHOCO is coming out with his first commercial art book next month, but much like with Aoi Nishimata, he has already released several art book-like doujins in the past and today I'm going to cover his Comiket 69 release Chocolate Geometry #0003. While I'm sure there'll be some new works in CHOCOLATE GOUACHE, we can also expect to see some older works considering the previews provided so far, many of which will be pulled from past doujinshi publications.

The cover design for Chocolate Geometry #0003 is clean and simple with a small holographic title, but the first thing you encounter upon opening this A4-sized book is a double-sided poster with a vividly colored sword wielding girl on each side. There is a decorative overlay page before the first illustration, but after that, it's a pretty standard presentation.

Chocolate Geometry #0003 is 118-pages in total, but less than half of that is in color. Only the first 22-pages are in color in fact, in addition to the poster. But as usual with CHOCO's work, the illustrations are elaborate and detailed, with vivid colors. Many of the works are spread over two pages, so it isn't a lot of illustrations, but they're all good ones ^^;

Towards the end, there are illustrations that were used on real-life goods, like a set of plastic tumblers which is an amusing yet functional way to enjoy the art. Again, the amazing detail in the weaponry and mecha just makes me look forward to seeing even more of it in CHOCOLATE GOUACHE.

Although much of the monochrome section of the book consists of sketches, there is also a short 4-page visual fan comic for the game Ico.

There's a mix of finished monochrome art works along with the sketches, many of which are fan arts. Apparently Powerpuff Girls was popular at the time, and there's a retro Nausicaa doujinshi cover too.

The monochrome illustrations are the majority of the works, and interestingly, one of the two books that are part of the CHOCOLATE GOUACHE set is entirely monochrome. But CHOCO also does a lot of more finished monochrome works, especially with mecha which makes up a good portion of the illustrations in this book as well. Anyhow, I wouldn't recommend buying Chocolate Geometry #0003 without seeing the newest collection, but at the moment, it's not hard to find on auction and will probably only get cheaper as time goes on ^^;

• Title: Chocolate Geometry #0003
• タイトル: Chocolate Geometry #0003
• Pages: 118
• Release date: 12/30/2005
• Buy: Yahoo! Japan Auctions