The first thing I thought upon opening up CIRCUS 10th Visual Album was... MOONSTONE Complete Illustrations. It's amazing how completely similar the two are organized, right down to page layouts and section headings. Both books were originally slated to release last year in December, but in the end only MOONSTONE met that deadline. But now I can see the reason for the most likely reason for the delay in CIRCUS 10th Visual Album's release: the print quality.

CIRCUS 10th Visual Album is printed in a way that is generally only reserved for doujinshi, with no visible DPI and only light noise. That is no small feat for a 240-page A4 size book. But that also accounts for the above average price for the art book of ￥3780. There are also other packaging bonuses, with an open-box slip cover and a DVD-ROM that includes demo movies of the games in the book and audio interviews.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the illustrations are from the D.C. Da Capo series of games. The first section in the book is titled "Part 01 Circus Best Illustrations" which features all official illustrations and publicity art work. This section runs from pages 5 through 106, with about 54 of those pages featuring D.C. Da Capo promotional art work.

Other games in the section include Infantaria, Suika, Valkyrie Complex, Eternal Fantasy, AR Forgotten Summer, Homemaid Sweets, Saishuu Shiken Kujira and everything else that CIRCUS has ever done. For the most part, these series don't get more than a few pages, with the exception of Eternal Fantasy, Saishuu Shiken Kujira, and Valkyrie Complex. You'll also notice from the photos above that many of the pages have tiled images, and overall there are few full page images in the book. However, it's not as bad as it usually is, because details (especially in thin outlines) aren't lost like they usually are because of the high quality printing.

The second part of CIRCUS 10th Visual Album is the "Circus Game Library" which goes through all the games in chronological order that the company has produced. The format for each section is for the most part an almost full-page illustration next to a second page with small in-game CGs. The D.C. Da Capo games have sections longer than two pages, but most of the images used are still in-game CGs. Also, be warned that since these are all H-games, there are illustrations directed at a more mature audience. This "Part 02" runs from pages 107 through 216.

CIRCUS 10th Visual Album ends with brief interviews with the artists and scenario designers, along with 4 original "thank you" illustrations from some of the CIRCUS artists like Konata and Takano Yuki. Overall, I liked this one better than MOONSTONE Complete Illustrations because even with all the illustrations packed in, the prints were still clear and sharp. Though it is on the expensive side for an art book, it does provide a huge summary of promotional CIRCUS art that was previously only available on the products themselves.

• Title: CIRCUS 10th Visual Album
• タイトル: Circus 10th Visual Album
• Pages: 240
• Release date: 03/31/2010
• Buy: Amazon Japan