tony taka

The lastest installment of collected E☆2 Magazine illustrations is Girls Girls Girls! 7 ~Anniversary Girl Collection~. The title belies the underlying theme, and the pictures on the whole tend to have a celebratory theme, or were illustrated for that purpose. In all there are 52 artists participating in this volume, with some of the illustrations gathered from E☆2 Magazine issues as far back as 2007.

Tony's ART Works from Shining World is easily one of the best art books I've ever purchased, and with its impending release in the US, even more people have the chance to enjoy this fantastic art book. I'm reviewing the Japanese edition, which may not be the same presentation-wise, but should have the same content.

HIME-CHARA ☆ DESIGNERS FILE is a directory of fairly well-known commercial illustrators that design the anime, game, and manga characters we've all come to know and love. The art book features a remarkable 111 artists, but much like last years 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting each artist gets two pages, one full page illustration and one with smaller tiled art works.

Fancy Frontier is a comic convention much like Comic Market, except it's held in Taiwan. Even so, it attracts a lot Japanese artists who do exclusive art work for the convention, and Splendid Banquet - Taiwan Limited Illustrations is a great example of that. Artists like Aoi Nanase, Kisaragi Mizu, Tony Taka, Ramiya Ryo, REI, Amamiya Polan, Tokumi Yuiko, Mutsumi Sasaki, Noriyuki Matsumoto, and Carnelian have all done covers for the Fancy Frontier Magazine, and this art book collects their cover illustrations from 2005 through 2007.

Even though I bought Tony Taka's T2 Art Gallery months ago (and I think I even mentioned it in passing) I've only just gotten around to reviewing it after being reminded of the Toranoana artist gallery 'pamphlets' due to Alpha's (有葉) recent exhibit. And in retrospect, though I over paid for it, I would have ended up paying even more if I wanted to get it now -_-

The very first volume in the Girls Girls Girls! series, called Girls Girls Girls! Illustration Collection came out in Febraury 2007, filled with the illustrations of various well-known artists that had been drawn prior to that date and featured in E☆2 magazine. As a result, this book is almost like a time capsule showing how many of today's popular artists evolved in their style, while others have managed to continue to deliver quality.

Tony Works Ciel Chronicle is Tony Taka's latest art book release, collecting his illustrations with Ciel games like Shinshou Genmukan (真章 幻夢館), Sora no Iro, Mizu no Iro (そらのいろ、みずのいろ), Mitama: Shinobi (御魂 〜忍〜) and many more in one definitive volume. Several of the art works were previously published in game specific art books like Tony Works After... and Tony Works 御魂~忍~ARCANA~ that have since gone out of print, and can be very hard (and expensive) to get. Also, this post marks my 100th review ^^

When I heard Tony Taka would be coming out with a new full color doujinshi, titled COLLECT1 T2 Art Works during Comiket 76, it became the top of my 'to get' list. I'd wanted to buy his previous GRAPH I through GRAPH IV color collections but due to their age and rarity, they usually went for anywhere from ￥6000 to ￥8000 for 30 to 36 pages of art work. I know it's quality rather than quantity that should count, but with COLLECT1, I'd like to believe I was able to get both.