blog:nattoli, +tag:AZ PLAY

I should start this out by saying, I'm not a Kozue Amano fan. I've bought all of her books in the past, but they're some of the few art books that I've gone on to re-sell. But while I don't like Aria, Crescent Noise or Roman Club, I do like Amanchu! So I decided to give her latest book, BIRTH Amano Kozue Illustration Works IV a try.

CUTEG's Comiket 79 release, Angelism Girl's Collection 3.0 may well have been a K-ON! fan book with the sheer amount of illustrations featuring the cast. Not that I'm complaining, CUTEG's K-ON! art work is my favorite from any fan artist, as she strikes a balance between adorable and beautiful, which can be quite hard to do.

Kaori Minakami's second corset-themed doujinshi came out for the Summer Comiket, and unlike the last book, Corsetier Meets the Fairy Tales is entirely illustrations by Minakami. In this volume, Kaori Minakami explores illustrating corsets to fit fairy tale characters like Snow White, Thumbelina and several others.

E☆2's Comiket 79 original illustration collection once again featured a variety of well-known artists drawing this time on the theme of the classic school uniforms, the sailor fuku. In E☆2 Original Sailor Fuku to Chome Chome some artists experiment more than others to create a very memorable and unique collection of works.

Mimesis is a philosophical term that can mean anything from mimicry and imitation to the act of expression and presentation of self (thanks Wikipedia!). Haruse Hiroki's intent in using it as the title of his Comiket 79 release Mimesis isn't entirely clear, but the girls illustrated through out the doujinshi seem to become one with their surroundings that range from bunnies to autumn leaves.

Aoi Nishimata and Suzuhira Hiro, both artists with Navel, have worked together for years on the illustrated short story series Marriage Royale, which is essentially a harem-type story with reader participation that runs in Dengeki G's Magazine. Even if you're not interested in the story, the art work is lovely and hard to come by unless you're a die-hard subscriber to the magazine, so the Marriage Royale Illustrations PRISM art book makes for a great alternative to that option.

One of the many Toranoana gallery exhibitions from last year was an anniversary celebration of art by the production company PENCIL, which has under its wing artists like Tetsuya Ohno, Kannagi Rei, Tanihara Natsuki, and Shinonome Kazuhiko. Luckily, the PENCIL 10th Anniversary Pamphlet conveniently brings together the illustrations of these artists that were exhibited, just in case you couldn't make it to the event ^^

Saitom and TNSK have teamed up once again with their third book in the series Chroma of Girls titled Jewelic Princess Girls. The two artists each contribute four illustrations and a cover to this princess collection, bringing a very unique style to the theme.

HUKE's latest release PIC7 brings us a mix of his newest Black Rock Shooter illustrations alongside fan art and robots in a spectacular B4-sized book format. This cinema-like display for a book is new territory for HUKE, but his art work stands up to the size increase, with detailed works and elaborate textures on every illustration.

I wasn't familiar with SIRON's art work when I decided to pick up the artist's C78 release, School Photo x Memory. But the style certainly looked familiar, reminiscent of a simplified style version of Kaya Kuramoto's art works and for that reason I gave it a chance.

Adumi Tohru's Summer Comiket release was a two parter; one book was Flower Dust Crown and included original art works, and the other was Happy Heart Gift which was more of a fan art collection. Interestingly, they were being sold together even through the shops like Toranoana, so I was unwittingly able to get both ^^

Marmalade Illustration Works is a studio collection art book for the Marmalade games and it features promotional art from multiple games and artists. The games included are Konneko, Miraroma, Lyrical Lyric, Lyrical DS, and Kiss to Maou to Darjeeling. This art book is much in the same vein as other recent studio centric books like MOONSTONE Complete Illustrations, CIRCUS 10th Visual Album, and AKABEi SOFT2 Illustration Collection, providing a great overview of the game art work without going into to much detail with profile pages and in-game CGs.