Having been able to purchase Azalea Floating Miyasu Risa Illustrations directly from Amazon Japan only deepens my confusion as to what makes an art book +18. As usual, Miyasu Risa does what she does best and alternates her sweet girls between very naughty and nice. But if you've seen her work before, there won't be any surprises in Azalea Floating.

Azalea Floating is an A4-sized, 128-page art book that includes a variety of original works and commercial illustrations by Miyasu Risa. Though she has done a lot of fan art work, there isn't much in this collection, and you'd be better off sticking to doujinshi like Grande Desserts Risa Miyasu Color Illustrations if that's what you're looking for.

And on the topic of Grande Desserts, there is a notable amount of overlap between these two art books, although there's no argument that Azalea Floating has a better presentation, with non-textured pages and more full-page illustrations in general. And although the printing in Azalea Floating is a high AM screening, it still looks better than the FM screening used in Grande Desserts due to the paper quality.

Actually, because it seemed kind of high, I went through and counted the duplicates and there were 27 in total. But in relation to Azalea Floating Miyasu Risa Illustrations, which the cover obi declares as having 130 illustrations, that's not too bad.

As far as new illustrations go, the cover art (which is repeated inside) and the first spread illustration are both newly drawn for this art book. Also, the final illustration in the book, with a girl trying desperately to hold up her bikini top, is also new. I should also mention that the spreads were printed with a small amount of overlap, but the binding is so tight it may be a little hard to notice.

As you might guess, I've left out the naughty pictures in the book, and that includes about 20 illustrations. Overall, as a coherent collection Azalea Floating Miyasu Risa Illustrations flows a lot better than Grande Desserts did with more full-page art works, fewer spreads and just more current art work from Miyasu Risa. If you can only buy one, definitely go with Azalea Floating.

• Title: Azalea Floating Miyasu Risa Illustrations
• タイトル: Azalea Floating―ミヤスリサ画集
• Pages: 128
• Release date: 12/20/2010
• Buy: Amazon Japan, eBay