Hirano Katsuyuki, probably best known as the artist for the video game Record of Agarest War, will be releasing his first art book this December. But until then, his most recent release was from Comiket 78, titled Lateral Records 5. This doujinshi features full color illustrations as well as monochrome works that hopefully won't also be in the upcoming art book ^^;

Lateral Records 5 is a B5-sized, staple-bound collection and 20-pages when counting the covers. Hirano Katsuyuki, also known as Tsuyuki, makes use of the inside covers, placing illustrations and indexes on both. The illustrations are printed on thick, card stock pages with no visible DPI. The art works included are all quite fantasy themed, as it tends to be the genre preferred by Tsuyuki. All of the color works are polished, with glowing after effects and soft coloring.

Though I've watched Hirano Katsuyuki's releases from the start, I think this is the first one I've bought, mostly due to getting it off of Toranoana, instead of on auction where his works seem to go for way too much... Hopefully, the commercial art book will cover some of his older doujinshi work, along with commissioned works for magazines.

Hirano Katsuyuki manages to fill out his girls even in sketches, giving them voluptuous curves with careful shading. Though you can still see some of the sketch lines on the monochrome illustrations, they look pretty finished overall. Lateral Records 5 is a nice doujinshi, but with the upcoming Hirano Katsuyuki Art Works, and I would recommend waiting to see what's in that before making a decision.

• Title: Lateral Records 5
• タイトル: Lateral Records 5
• Pages: 20 (including covers)
• Release date: 08/15/2010
• Buy: Toranoana, Yahoo! Japan Auctions