Various - Soundgirl DUO - Nattoli's blog

December 11th, 2010, 7:46PM by nat | 2 comments

Soundgirl DUO is the commercial realization of the previously reviewed doujinshi Soundgirl - Onkyou Shoujo-. There is no illustration overlap between the two books, but several of the artists featured in the original book contribute at least one illustration each to Soundgirl DUO. This second book came out November 30th and retails for ￥1800.

Yoshizuki Kumichi, a participant in the original Soundgirl - Onkyou Shoujo- contributes two cover illustrations; one on the slip cover, and an equally beautiful one on the printed cover. Soundgirl DUO is B5-sized and 128-pages and includes works from a total of 37 artists. It also makes a point of including both headphones and audio systems this time, doing its best to maximize on potential hobbyists.

At a glance, the overall art work is leagues better than in Soundgirl - Onkyou Shoujo-. Even the artists that participated in both productions seemed to have put a lot more effort into their Soundgirl DUO works. Pictured above are illustrations from Kichiroku, Nikusho, Tomioka Jirou, JASON, Marukata, and Ikeda Yasuhiro.

These kind of books are really just about the pictures for me, even if the information was all in English, I still wouldn't be inclined to read about the products ^^; But with the frequency these are getting made---there's even a newly released Moeru iPhone Reader collection with cover art by Nagi Ryou---you would think seeing illustrated girls using a product was an important selling point! The pictures above are from the 'Headphone' chapter of the book, with illustrations above from Marukata, Akitsu Taira, Pochi, Ishikawa Sae, INO, and Nonsugar---who also appeared in the first book.

A lot of the illustrations really stood out to more, certainly more so than the recent Moeru Classic Heroine Collection which involved many of the same artists. Yumeji Kiriko's girl stood out with the interesting palette choices, making her seem fantastically uniform in her blonde-ness. NishiEda was able to illustrate the ULTRASONE Edition 10 headphones, which were already quite decorative and went with the overall nature-theme of the illustration.

Artists Sime and YahaKo both have an illustration in Soundgirl DUO. The book ends with interviews with ALI PROJECT and other industry folk on monochrome pages. There's also an index which includes artist comments for each illustration. Maybe these kinds of books are just becoming too prolific, but Soundgirl DUO is definitely one of the best releases of its kind this year, even if the first book was so forgettable ^^;