For Comitia 92, RubiconHearts released their second publication, titled Neko to Shoujo (猫と少女), featuring a collection of illustrations of girls and cats by Take (竹), Tsunekawa Niwasuke (常川庭助), Ame (雨), and Yuu (優). While it doesn't have the famous illustrators of the first collection『Kyoto, Spring.』, it does continue to maintain the high standards of quality the circle set for themselves during Comiket 77.

This 16-page doujinshi is once again A3 sized, and full color. The cover art work is by Take (竹), whose unique style brought to life the characters of Katanagatari and decorated the covers of the Zaregoto Series. The cover design extends over the front and back covers, and onto the inside of the back cover making it an even more decorative design.

The inside art work is also lovely, starting with an illustration by Ame (雨), whose girl and cat seem even more full of life due to their settings. Tsunekawa Niwasuke's art work is on the adjoining page, with a crying girl being comforted by her cat.

Tsunekawa Niwasuke's other work in the book is more of a visual comic, with panels and minimal text. It's kind of interesting to note that Tsunekawa Niwasuke is more of a boy's love artist, with her usual works depicting very androgynous guys, so it's nice to see her do something different.

Ame and Yuu (優) have 4-pages each, both of which are spreads. Ame's pages are part illustration and part visual comic (like in the above left photograph and the opening picture for this post) and both aspects are beautifully illustrated. Yuu's pages are much more like a colored manga, but at this size it just has a different feel to it. I guess it makes you really look at each panel more closely.

Though I didn't like it as much as 『Kyoto, Spring.』, I was still impressed by several of the illustrations and it's the first work I've seen from Take outside of the commercial circuit. One of the main differences with Neko to Shoujo is that there wasn't a "production team" behind every illustration unlike with RubiconHearts's first release. Even still, my interest is piqued to see their Comiket 78 release; the A3 poster-sized preview flyer below came with this doujinshi as an extra ^^

• Title: Neko to Shoujo
• タイトル: 猫と少女
• Pages: 16 (including covers)
• Release date: 05/04/2010
• Buy: Yahoo! Japan Auctions