365 Reasons to Love

Title: Your Eyes Only

Artist(s)/Creator(s): CLAMP.

Pages: 128 each.

Release Date: December 4, 2007

Retail Price: $17.99 each.

Price I bought it for: $9.00

Place I bought it from: Amazon.com

It was a very beautiful artbook of the popular anime/manga series, “Chobits.” 98% of the book are pictures of Chi, with very few images of the side characters. It lacks in variety, but it’s a wonderful compilation of Chi in beautiful costumes and backgrounds. This is a B5 size book, published by Tokyopop.

The book is divided into different themes. The first being “Flower”.

Colors are quite vibrant, but they’re not sharp pictures. The lines are hazy, which contributes to the effect that Chobits intends to give off. It’s very soft and innocent.

Periodically throughout the book, we’d have these sparse pictures of Chi. It means more white space but it’s tastefully inserted. This is an example from the section labeled “Blue.”

Section “Green.”

Section “Water.” I love this two-page spread of Chi placed delicately above the water. There are many full and two-page spreads throughout the book, but the gutter does suck up some of the picture. If you can really crack the book open, you can see the whole picture.

Section “Rain.”

Section “Window.” You’ll see Chi in many different costumes that don’t appear in the manga/anime.

Only 3 pages for section “Sumomo.”

The “Dress Up” section is quite extensive.

A full two-page spread of the picture on the cover here under the “Relax” section.

“Black” and “White” section.

I love the arrangement of the Explanatory Notes/Comments section. Very cute way of corresponding the illustrations with their notes.

Very beautiful book at a very cheap price. I watched the anime a long time ago and I have a lukewarm feeling about it. It started out unique, but towards the end, things seemed a bit convoluted and not everything made sense. However, the anime ended on a good note and I loved the artwork.