THROWLINE is an older Range Murata publication, released for Comiket 73 at the end of 2007. Unlike his most recent doujinshi publications, it features monochrome sketches along with color art works. The gorgeous cover art work on this book still hasn't managed to find its way into another re-collection, though Range Murata has indicated in a recent Kikan S issue that he's working on another illustration collection tentatively titled GAME WORKS. I didn't think he worked on a lot of games though...

THROWLINE is A4-sized and 36 pages when counting the covers. It's split up into 14 pages of color, and 16 pages of monochrome which feature a lot of sketches. Unfortunately, the cover art isn't repeated inside. The cover itself has a shimmery finish that shines when angled, and the printing through out the book is high quality, with no visible printing dots. While the color illustrations are printed on smooth pages, the monochrome pages actually feel like sketchbook pages.

There is one illustration featuring nudity, but it's done in that artful way. A couple of the illustrations were in volumes of ROBOT as well, though I couldn't say which issues. I was really impressed with the Astro Boy tribute illustrations, it's not a series that I thought could ever look so good ^^

As for the monochrome works, while some are sketches of the color works featured in THROWLINE, there are also a couple pages of circle cut illustrations along with more finished-looking monochrome works. On the whole, Range Murata's doujins have vastly improved, especially in regards to including more color works, but his older illustrations are still just as captivating, with a beautiful level of depth and detail.

• Title: THROWLINE
• タイトル: THROWLINE
• Pages: 36 (including covers)
• Release date: 01/01/2008
• Buy: Yahoo! Japan Auctions