nishimata aoi

For the one day event Magi Madoka ONLY - Mou Nanimo Kowaku Nai (魔まマ オンリーイベント～もう何も恐くない～), Nao Shirahane (DMYO) of Snow Ring teamed up with Nishimata Aoi from JOKER RING to create a most awesome Madoka doujinshi, Puella Magi Madoka Magica CONNECT. The doujinshi was part of a set that included a bag along with a clearfile that featured a joint illustration by the two artists with Kaname Madoka and Akemi Homura.

In May this year, the Eshi 100 Gallery Exhibition opened in the Akihabara UDX building and ran for a brief 5 days showcasing new illustrations by some of the most recognized artists in Japan. The gallery exhibition theme was the very open-ended idea of 'Japan', allowing for amazing creativity from the artists along with many different conceptual representations. This gorgeous exhibition was collected as a book, Eshi 100 - Contemporary Japanese Illustration and sold during the event.

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.

Aoi Nishimata Illustrations Passion is a doujinshi art book that was released at Comiket 67, so suffice to say it was a while ago. Though there are a couple books that are more interview than art book along with series specific books, Aoi Nishimata's first full-fledged commercial art book Vivid will be coming out in December, making earlier books a lot less interesting ^^ So I figured I'd review these while they have a shred of relevance!