Like Headphone Girls: A Pictorial Book is meant to get you into buying expensive, stylish headphones, the Moeru Japanese Sword Girls book is designed to get you interested in (and hopefully buying) Japanese swords, through the use of anime girls holding these very sturdy weapons. This book is as much about the illustrations as it is about getting you to appreciate sword design, and if you can read Japanese you might just garner a lot more out of it that you bargained for.

But me, I'm just in it for the pretty pictures :D The cover art is what sold me, with an illustration of a sword swinging girl by mebae, a favorite artist of mine. The back cover has a group of crazy looking girls who will no doubt have to be put down by our heroine. And there's a bit of an easter egg too, underneath the slip cover, you can see the crazy girls bound and blind-folded as the cover girl proceeds to cut off their heads. Yeah, a little extreme, but it's all line art ^^;

Japanese Sword Girls (萌える日本刀大全) includes more art by up and coming artists than the famous established types. But there are some illustrations from artists who also appeared in Headphone Girls such as Midori Foo, Fujishima, Shishizaru, mebae, Teikoku Shounen, and Refeia.

And the artists aren't the only thing these books have in common, they're both B5 size readers, so a little on the small side for art books. But that's because it's also supposed to be a convenient size for reading ^^; The sections are divided by sword type, with a page about the sword and then an illustration. Each section ends with real photos of the swords that inspired the illustrations.

So which do you prefer, girls with swords in school uniforms, or in their traditional Japanese dress? I'm in the school girl camp, it just looks more unassuming, like she can't really know what she's doing but then proceeds to beat you down :D It also has a pop culture flair that just makes it look cool.

But don't get me wrong, I absolutely see the appeal in the other direction. With the traditional clothing, it really combines a sense of grace and beauty with lethal skills. Plus, there's no limit to the costume design. More of the artists in Japanese Sword Girls chose the more elaborate, detailed, and colorful designs of traditional Japanese clothing. And really, they used it as more of a guideline, letting their imaginations run free with a lot of these outfits.

If you're curious about who drew what, just click on the pictures. The title for each picture is the illustrator's name. The image on the top left is by Rokuwata Tomoe, who has also done some gorgeous Touhou art of Youmu Konpaku, which isn't a huge leap from the picture above ^^;

Moeru Japanese Sword Girls is 128 pages long, and entirely in color. Though it's a mix of information and illustrations, the art work is just so nice and original that it's worth it even if you can't understand the text. A total of 34 artists are included with at least one illustration each, so it's also a great way to discover new artists to follow!

Anyone ready to take up sword collecting now? ;D

• Title: Moeru Japanese Sword Girls
• タイトル: 萌える日本刀大全
• Pages: 128
• Release date: 10/16/2009
• Buy: Amazon Japan