365 Reasons to Love

Title: The Arina Tanemura Collection: The Art of Full Moon.

Artist(s)/Creator(s): Arina Tanemura.

Pages: 68.

Release Date: October 21, 2008.

Retail Price: $19.99 (English publication)

Price I bought it for: I got it for free due to a series of combined discounts and Border bucks. =P

Place I bought it from: Borders.

Book comes in standard A4 format with a lovely matte dust jacket. 68 pages of thick paper with colors covering nearly every inch of the book. Contains English translations of artist’s commentary and explanations for every illustration. It also comes with a double-sided poster in the back.

I have never read the manga (or watched the anime; 52 episodes!) but I love artwork by Arina Tanemura. Her style is fluffy and cute, comparable to CLAMP; it’s also very detailed and extensive in her use of different elements in each piece. I guess her trademark would be the very large eyes and pointy chin of all(?) her characters.

The inside cover and part of the dust jacket.

The first Illustration covered by rice paper.

Behind the rice paper is the artist’s very vibrant and detailed illustration.

You can see the artist’s notes and comments along the borders of the illustrations.

The book mainly contains full-page illustrations, nestled among numerous pages of smaller illustrations; there’s only a couple of two-page spreads.

Example of author’s commentary: “Cherry Blossom Color”: Mitsuki-chan is naked because this is an image in her mind. Whenever I draw cherry blossoms, I color the branches a deep cherry-pink, not brown. That’s something i insist on. Full Moon (Ribon, Jan. 2003, Title page.)

I have to say every page is filled with images and text that cover the whole page. You’ll rarely find white space, except for the text. Some might find the book a little cramped and overwhelming, but I don’t really mind.

There’s a nice half-page picture of the dust cover.

One positive for such an arrangement of pictures is that the art doesn’t get stuck in the gutter.

There’s always a lot going on in the picture.

This is artwork from Time Stranger Kyoko, which takes up a section in the back of the book.

Also, with this format of Illustration-Artist’s commentary, there’s no need for a whole Artist’s Explanation section in the back of the book. Although some people might prefer their artwork absent of text.

Fold-out poster!

Artist’s Afterwords.

Overall, even though I’ve never read/watched any of Arina Tanemura’s work, her artwork and unique style makes this an artbook you can’t pass over. Plus, the American Version is always so cheap compared to the Japanese version. It’s still available on Amazon for a discounted price!

I don’t really buy artbooks based on what I’ve already read/watched. I buy it for the art. =] Cheers!