True Tears was one of the few series I actually followed week to week last year, so when I found out True Tears Memories was coming out, I bought it despite what I know about visual guides.

For the most part, books that focus on a particular anime series (or game for that matter) have a smaller illustration gallery than an artist's collection and this book is no exception. Because of this, I tend to buy anime visual books only for series I've watched and enjoyed.

True Tears Memories is 112 pages long, with 64 pages color and the rest in black and white. The first six pages of the book are used as an introduction to each of the mail heroines, Noe, Hiromi, and Aiko and feature the illustrations from the True Tears DVDs covers volumes 4, 5, and 6 respectively. The gallery section has roughly 20 illustrations over 10 pages, so not every image gets a full page presentation.

After the gallery, this collection becomes pretty typical of most anime visual books. Extensive episode summaries are provided with screen shots and commentary on all 13 episodes, filling about 26 pages. I never understand these sections, because I would think most people who would buy a series-oriented book have actually seen the series...

Next up is the background art section. Though some might find it boring, I really enjoy seeing the background art from the episodes (though the pictures are usually smaller than they should be). I always find it interesting how realistic anime backgrounds tend to be, even when the characters don't look remotely real.

There are also two pages dedicated to the chicken story Shinichiro was illustrating. I can't explain it any better than that, you just have to watch the show ;D

Right before the black and white section, we have 6 pages of character profiles that pretty much include all the costumes worn by Hiromi, Aiko, and Noe through out the series. I'm sure sections like that are especially helpful to cosplayers.

Interestingly, this book also includes a DVD that has an interview/chat with the voice actresses for Noe, Aiko, and Hiromi, as well as a collection of 11 BMP format wallpapers (highest resolution 1600 x 1200) from some of the illustrations that were in the beginning gallery.

From this point on everything is black and white. The remainder of the content is pretty much interviews and line arts. Not that I think either is a bad thing, but also not the main reason I buy art books.

Overall, the illustration gallery was pretty nice for this kind of book, and well presented with most image occupying at least half a page (I've seen worse tiling). It also has plenty of material for fans of the show, especially with the exclusive art book only DVD of the voice actresses. Have you ever bought an anime art book and been disappointed?