Ito Noizi's third art book, Ito Noizi Illustrations SO-U-E-N, is what I've come to expect from this artist: hardcover, and mostly Shakugan no Shana with little bits from other series in addition to the art published in her doujinshis.

Ito Noizi Illustrations SO-U-E-N starts out with a large section of Shakugan no Shana art work, 53 pages in fact. Most of the illustrations are full page, though there are a couple pages of the black and white art from the light novels, and a few split page illustrations.

I think she just gets better and better at drawing Shana, but I'm getting tired of seeing Shana over and over again in a slightly different pose. I'm sure all you Shana fans out there complete disagree ;P Do you ever buy art books featuring shows you don't watch?

I was a bit disappointed to see nothing from Flyable Heart or Alice Parade in it. Though, this might be just because there's a bigger market of buyers for hentai art books. So instead, we get more art from Be-BEE-Beat It! and Nanatsuiro Drops.

The art work Ito Noizi does for other shows and her original works are my favorite in the book. Her version of Aono Morimiya from SOLA is just gorgeous!

The one thing that bothers me though, is that I tend to collect her Fujitsubo Machine doujinshis too. So for me, a lot of these images were repeats, and even worse, it made me regret buying the doujin since most of it came out in the art book. If you knew that art work from a doujinshi publication would later be in an art book, would you still buy the doujinshi?

Ito Noizi Illustrations SO-U-E-N ends with an interview with Ito Noizi and there's a full color index that includes the artist's comments, and where the image was originally published. It weighs in at 128 pages, with full coloring printing. This book retails for 2800 yen, and it's loaded with illustrations and well-made, so it's worth it. It's available on Amazon Japan, and other online retailers, so it's easy to find if you're interested ^^

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• Title: Ito Noizi Illustrations SO-U-E-N
• タイトル: 蒼炎―いとうのいぢ画集
• Pages: 128
• Release date: 08/2009
• Buy: Amazon Japan, eBay