Archive for the Yuri Artbook Category


Galette Illustration Book 01

June 21st, 2021

Crowd-funded, creator-owned quarterly Yuri manga magazine, Galette is coming up on a third anniversary later this year. It’s currently at 18 issues of the main magazine out, 15 volumes of Galette MEETS, several Collaborations and about a dozen collected volumes under their belt. Not so much a celebration, but as a fun extra book, the folks at Galette WORKS took some time to collect some of the color art from Galette Magazine up into a single volume, Galette Illustration Book 01 .

I comment on this every single time I get an issue – I absolutely love pen’s illustrations for the cover of Galette and also really like the design aesthetic. With this volume, you can see a number of the cover illustrations, some of the inside cover and internal illustrations by other artists and get bios and art from other popular artists with ongoing series… among them Hakamada Mera, Morinaga Milk, Hamano Ringo and Momono Moto.

If you, too are a fan of these artists, of creator-owned Yuri manga, you can get digital back issues of some of Galette’s publications by becoming a supporter on Japanese crowd-funding site Fantia. The illustration book is available to anyone on the “Normal Course 500￥/month or above. If you prefer to support the artists directly without the magazine, there’s also a Galette Pixiv Fanbox, where each month a different artist contributes illustrations and a post.

If you’re interested in the art, but don’t want to support the magazine as a whole, you can grab a copy of the Galette Illustration Book 01 on on US Kindle. It’s only a few bucks and has some really lovely art. And I love that it’s been collected in a single volume to enjoy.

Ratings:

Overall – 9

pen’s work scratches all my artistic itches…stylish, adult, beautiful design, no blob heads to be seen. It’s everything I want in Yuri manga cover art. ^_^  I like it so much I jumped at getting a copy in print. It will be heading over on my next shipment from Japan. ^_^

While you’re at it, get yourself a copy of Galette No. 18 in Japanese on US Kindle and enjoy the new illustrations!





Bloom Into You Artbook, Astrolabe (アストロラーベ), Guest Review by tikkitavi

May 5th, 2021

Hello and welcome to another wonderful Guest Review Wednesday! Today we have a new Guest Reviewer today! tikkitavi is one of the friendly gang you’ll meet on the Okazu Discord, and he kindly offered to walk us through Nakatani Nio’s Yagate Kimi Ni Naru artbook. Please welcome tikkitavi and give him a warm welcome. The floor is yours, tikkitavi!

I like to say that I’ve been interested in Yuri since the days of Xena:Warrior Princess, but it took Bloom into You to spark my current regard for Yuri. I love the series on several levels, so when I discovered that Nakatani-sensei had an artbook named Astrolabe (アストロラーベ) available, naturally I had to add it to my collection.

In terms of content, this is a pretty complete snapshot of Bloom into You color and monochrome illustrations before 2020. The artbook was published in early 2020; given production lead times, it’s not surprising that it lacks images from later works such as the third Saeki Sayaka novel. I felt the lack most in that there isn’t a single image of Yuu, Touko, or Sayaka after high school in the artbook.

 

However, it includes promotional artwork, art for goods, SNS stickers, earlier Yuriten images, and the like, in addition to the expected book and video packaging art. (The SNS stickers and web art are particularly cute.) Most of the art features Touko and Yuu, plus a smattering involving Sayaka; for those interested in other characters, they appear quite rarely.

Beyond Bloom into You, it includes a couple of collaboration pieces that add characters from other series. There are also a handful of illustrations created by Nakatani-sensei for works such as a novel by Iruma-sensei (writer of the Saeki Sayaka novels) and art for the Ѐclair series.

There are only two pieces original to the artbook; the cover, and an extra end spread. A five-page chapter detailing the production of the cover art is a nice bonus, especially for artists and those interested in the steps involved in creating digital art. A photo of Nakatani-sensei’s work area augments this. Beyond this, Nakatani-sensei wrote captions for all the major works and a short afterword. I admit, I would have liked to see more new content, perhaps a short manga or the like.

 

Fans of the series, who understand the character’s relationships, will see the Yuri on almost every page; the weighted looks and intimate moments are a joy. Nakatani-sensei’s muted palette and clean imagery works well here. For those seeking anything more salacious than holding hands, they will need to look elsewhere.

Physically, the volume is typical for Japanese anime and manga artbooks. 128 pages, softcover, perfect bound, printed on a smooth heavy weight paper; a plastic slipcase pushes it slightly above average for the type. One could still wish for hardbound with a lay-flat binding, though that would be pretty uncommon (and expensive); but it would have helped with the two-page spreads quite a bit.

Ratings:

Production – 8
Content – 8
Yuri – 9
Service – 1 (a couple images of Yuu and Touko in swimsuits)

Overall – 8

Generally, I felt this was a quite nice but not exceptional artbook, a satisfactory addition to the library of anyone who appreciates
Nakatani-sensei’s work.

 

Erica here: Thank you very much! It’s good to know what the contents include! Artbooks are always a great mystery unless we get a chance to see inside. We appreciate you giving us this guided tour. ^_^ Astrolabe is available in print on Amazon JP, CD Japan, and as a e-book, on JP Kindle or Bookwalker!





Yuri Artbook: Marguerite – Fly’s Art Works (Marguerite フライ作品集)

July 21st, 2019

Why yes, I am still catching up on relics from my last February trip to Tokyo! In Shosen Book Tower, where the Yuribu was impressively large and well-organized and has a variety of manga, photo albums, novels and other print matter, there were several large artbooks were visible on the shelves and near the register with a very attractive, eye-catching layouta. An artbook of Avalon Yuri anthology illustrations were prominently displayed as was the subject of today’s review Marguerite – Fly’s Art Works (Marguerite フライ作品集).

If you have been paying attention to Yuri recently, you have probably encountered Fly’s artwork.Fly’s done work for Kadokawa and has been the cover artist for Comic Yuri Hime. They have, of course been one of the featured artists at the Yuriten. I quite like their work. It’s got a gentle sensibility and is very moody without being depressing or dull. Pretty girls in contemplative moments set in appealing surroundings. There’s little service, and a lot of intimacy without exploitation. The artist’s very specific form of service comes through in the collection as a whole, but as fetishes go, it’s arguably ignorable. ^_^

The first section, “Innocence,” consists of portraits of individual girls. Section 2 and beyond feature more couples. Section 3 “Love Unrequited” is split between portraits of individuals and couples and Section 4, “Secret Love” is full of Comic Yuri Hime cover art and similar couple portraits.

Fly’s work incorporates a lot of background color and shape without much texture or depth, the art uses water and plant life as the setting rather often. The overall sense is normal days passing in the lives of young women, some of whom who happen to be together. There’s no drama, which makes this collection less like something to page through and more like something to pull down off the shelf and open up, smile at the image and put back for another day.

Ratings:

Overall – 8

It’s all very pleasant ^_^





Yuri Manga: Lillium Terarium (リリウム・テラリウム)

March 17th, 2019

Lilium Terarium (リリウム・テラリウム) by ED is a collection of short comics from Yuri Hime @ Pixiv. As YNN Corespondent CW helpfully noted, “The serialization was based on a 4 page piece which got quite heavily retweeted when it was posted on twitter.”

The book itself is impressive, with glossy pages, comics printed in one or two colors that differentiate arcs from one other and clear printed dust cover, Lilium Terrarium is more like an artbook than a manga.

The name is, frankly, perfect. We watch young women in a variety of typical shoujo-style Yuri set-ups, much as we watch snails in terrarium, with interest, rather than engagement. These are stories we’ve seen before, just the markings are different. That said, the book is a very nice version of that Yuri terrarium and the snails all have nice markings. ^_^

My favorite of the arcs is the Kanako & Yumi arc, which begins with four friends playing at the seaside. Kanako and Yumi’s relationship is comfortable, but the camaraderie between the four is what warmed the cockles of my heart. (I had a grandmother who used to say that. We used to make fun of her, but I think I just figured it out, the ventricles kind of looks like cochlae. HUH.) I also enjoyed the heavy dark lines of the Mei & Aki arc and loved that the book ended with a sweet lightly-colored and charming story about Nanayo and Juri, who adorn the back cover, as well.

As a reproduction of digital comics in paper form, it’s unique and quite lovely.

I picked this up at Shosen Book Tower so I got one of the special paper inclusions, this one of Mei, I believe.

Ratings:

Art – 8
Story – 7
Characters – 7
Service – 0
Yuri – 6

Overall – 7

All in all a nice, if not breathtaking, collection of Yuri schoolgirl stories which was more interesting for the presentation than the content. 





Yuri Artbook: Toccata II by Shilin Huang

August 16th, 2017

Thanks to everyone who offered birthday thanks this week! I’ve been thinking hard about what I wanted as my first post-birthday review, and decided that today, I’m talking about something that fully embraces the idea that if you don’t see what you want to read in the world you should just go ahead and make it.

Shilin Huang is an artist I have been following for some years. Her webcomic, Carciphona is excellent in every way; art, story and characters. In 2014 I was fortunate enough to be at TCAF and be able to purchase her first artbook, Toccata from the artist directly. 

This year at Otakuthon, I was ecstatic to see her in the artist alley and to pick up her newest artbook,  Toccata II. Shilin’s art has…well, matured isn’t the right word, exactly. It’s approaching mastery. I’m not being entirely hyperbolic, either. A few of the pictures in this book were positively Raphael-esque in depth of color, pose and texture. 

Of the pictures I like best, many of them are riffing on the main characters from Carciphona; sorcerer Veloce Visrin and her archenemy(?) Blackbird who, particularly set out of context in realish-world situations, make for a really sexy couple. The comic itself is a high fantasy, so it’s always kind of fun to see Veloce and Blackbird in modern clothes in a modern apartment, as well as in their native elaborate fantasy setting. You can take a look at many of the images as posters in Shilin’s shop  – and she sometimes does drawing online in live sessions, which is always entertaining.

I have yet to actually review Carciphona, (although it is on the list, along with any number of other webcomics I read) but let me take a moment to recommend it highly if you like emotionally intense stories of high fantasy and magic and spirits and lots of fighting and swirly art. And if you like it, the first 6 collected volumes are all available in print as a set or as single issues.

In the meantime, I’ll sit here enjoying this picture, Autumn, with Veloce and Blackbird in uncharacteristic (for them) pose on an anachronistic (for them) motorcycle. ^_^

Ratings: 

Overall – 10

This book has some damn fine work in it.