nagi ryou

Since it was clear from the title that Nagi Ryou's newest collection would be a archive of website illustrations, I wasn't expecting much in terms of quality or large illustrations. And no doubt having such moderate expectations about BEGINNING S.E.C Website Illustration Archive helped me to appreciate it more, since it turned out to be better than expected.

Moeru iPhone Reader, released December 14th, is the newest in the ever growing series of artist collections featuring girls using some kind of everyday item. Moeru's iPhone Reader is great advertising for Apple---an iPhone is prominently placed with every girl---so the individual aspects of the illustration focus on the app being showcased, and how the girl is using (or not using) it.

I don't know what it is about trading card game illustrations, but I've really never been interested in them. So knowing ahead of time that Ar Tonelico illustrator Nagi Ryou's Comiket 78 release T.U.R.N Collection of TCG Illustrations would be exactly that, I wasn't initially committed to buying it. It didn't help that the resale price for the doujinshi on Toranoana was ￥1470, which is really quite high for a 24-page doujin considering I've bought new art books for less.

Ar Tonelico Visual Book Souten Rakudo focuses entirely on the game characters and promotional art works from the Ar Tonelico series games I - III. For those of you who've never purchased any Ar Tonelico art collections, then Ar Tonelico Visual Book Souten Rakudo is the one to buy. On the other hand, if you've purchased any of the previous Ar Tonelico guides, well, then you're in for a lot of repetition.

With a little something old as something new, Nagi Ryou's Comiket 77 release COLORS compiles three volumes of S.E.C (Sensuous Expression Content according to the cover) doujinshi into one 32-page, full color collection of art work from the past few years. The cover art is new to the book, but the rest of the content came from S.E.C volumes 00, 01, and 03 along with a couple of postcards released at past Comic Markets.

Nagi Ryou (凪良) is probably best know for the game designs of Ar Tonelico. And if you haven't seen those, then he's probably pretty new to you. Nagi Ryou also has a circle called S.E.C., though as far as I know he's the only one in it.

Influence was a Comiket 76 release, featuring Nagi Ryou's take on anime and art work that influences him. I would guess Neon Genesis Evangelion was the greatest influence as it gets the most pages, but of course that might also be coincidence.