Here is the first part of my big artbook haul that I posted about a few days.  I selected a few books out of the bunch for a closer look.

Kyourin Takanae Art Works, Ninomiya-kun

This artbook is dedicated to images from Ninomiya-kun, of which I know very little about.  That’s ok though because the art is still good without background knowledge of the source.  About 2/3 of the book is color content and the rest is black and white sketches and concept art.  I do own one older doujinshi by Kyourin Takanae and I thought the style was cute so I decided to give this artbook a try.

The illustrations focus on what I guess are the two main female characters and they monopolize the majority of the pages.  Not a bad thing though as they’re displayed in many different outfits and keeps it interesting.  Unlike the doujinshi I have, this book is mostly clean.  There is a bit of nudity but not really hentai material here.  If you like this particular artist, this book is worth picking up.  Otherwise, you might be better off with just some scans :)

Pixiv Girls Collection

Do I really need to explain what Pixiv is?  Anyone with an interest in Japanese anime art is likely already familiar with this art community.  Lots of Japanese artists post their original artwork on the site and it has exploded in popularity in the past year.  This artbook attempts to sort out the best and most popular images into a single printed collection.  Considering the huge number of images on pixiv and after going through the book, I think they did a pretty good job at picking the good images.

I can’t possibly name all the artists here, but each image does include the artist’s name (alias, usually), title of their work, and a comment by them.  The book is divided into two sections, one for “Illustrations” and one for “Concept Art”.  You will find the ever-present  Vocaloid images in the Concept Art section.  Otherwise, I don’t find the distinction very useful as a lot of the images seem to be able to fit into either section.  Anyway, this collection is huge.  162 pages with some pages having multiple illustrations.  That might be a downside for some potential purchasers but there is still a good number of full page illustrations.  Overall, I like this book.  While you can find all of these images online (pixiv, of course!), it’s nice to have some of my favorite images in print form :).

First image is by Sayori who I’ve become a big fan of in the past few months.  Love the art.  Second image is Miku in “Word is Mine” image.

Kirakira-Reki: Mikeou Artworks

Yay, more Mikeou ^^  This is an officially published artbook by Mikeou though it doesn’t feel much different from her Chronicle doujinshi artbooks.  The good thing here is that there is very little nudity here and for an artist like Mikeou, that’s worth mentioning.  So, little actual nudity but there are is a sizable number of panty shots.  Probably 1/2 of the images have panty shots ^^;  The largest part of the  book is divided into the four seasons, with a section for summer, autumn, winter, and spring.  The Mikeou girls are dressed in clothing (mostly) appropriate for the given season.  Lastly, there is an “Other” section miscellaneous characters like Melon-chan.

Mikeou’s work here is, as usual, quite appealing and I definitely recommend checking out this great artbook.

The elusive school mizugi midriff.

Shingetsu: The Art of Chouniku

The only hard cover book in this group, Shingetsu is by the artist who did the character designs for the Disgaea game series.  Now, I’m really not a fan of the games.  I tried playing them and lost interest pretty quickly (strategizing block distance, height, turns… how fun) but the art behind the series is pretty decent.  Etna, Flonne, and Laharl being the most popular and well-known characters and all are present here.  This is the main section of the book and while the art is good, I think I like the Novels and Other section illustrations more.  The style is a bit different in those sections than the Disgaea art and seems to appeal more to me.  Not the best artbook I’ve purchased but a decent buy.

Shugo Chara Illustrations

Last, but certainly not least in my opinion is the Shugo Chara Illustrations collection by Peach Pit.  For those who don’t know me, I love the Shugo Chara series.  I wrote up a review of the first series a while ago in which I expressed my love ^^. The art here is official work by the Peach Pit duo so it’s styled more like the manga than the anime.  An interesting note about this book is that the cover is removable.  While that’s not unusual with artbooks, this cover doubles as a big poster.  You remove it, unfold the overlapping edges and you end up with a big, glossy high resolution poster :D  In the book you will find mostly images of the heroine, Hinamori Amu and her various shugo chara versions.  Lots of very kawaii, very moe images here ^_^

This is my first Peach Pit artbook since Shugo Chara is the first Peach Pit series I’ve really enjoyed.  Rozen Maiden was ok but didn’t watch beyond the first series.  I think getting this book has made me appreciate their style more and I will probably look into getting their earlier Rozen Maiden/Zombie Loan/DearS art collections ;)

Punk lolita Amu and sundress Amu <3

That’s it for part 1 of my big artbook stash.  There will probably be 2 more parts coming in the next week so look forward to more pretty pictures :)