365 Reasons to Love

Title: 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting

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

Pages: 216.

Release Date: March 1, 2010.

Retail Price: 2380yen; 31.00USD

Price I bought it for: $31.00

Place I bought it from: Amazon.com

Those phenomenally popular Japanese anime girls big-eyed beauties with winsome expressions and impossibly flexible bodies are called bishojo, Japanese for beautiful girls. In this eye-popping new book from BNN, you ll find 500 versions of the bishojo gals digitally illustrated by 100 Japanese masters.

The cover is designed by one of the genre’s most celebrated artists, Range Murata, and featured artists include professional illustrators who create covers for the young adult genre called light novel in Japan and who design characters for games and animations, as well as stand-out amateur artists who show their works on pixiv
(the best-known user-generated illustration website in Japan) or in doujinshi (independently published comics).

This eminently useful book also includes information to serve as a directory to these talented Japanese artists and the production environment they specialize in. Using a password and ID in the book, readers can download very cool desktop wallpapers.- Amazon.

Inside cover is very simple. Book is B5 format.

Book begins with a preface in japanese and english introduction. Followed by Three 2-page spread by VOFAN, toi8, and Shimeko as a special feature.

A list of all the artists that are featured in this artbook.

Yo Asami.

The format of this book is very similar to the artbook “Girl, Illustrated” where artists get two pages of the book, which usually contains one full page, a couple of smaller illustrations and a bit of information about them at the top. It includes websites, profile, and a short message.

Eiji Usatsuka.

Shiho ENTA.

Yay, Kazuaki! =]

Yu Kamiya.

Kuroyuki.

Even our famous KEI!

Zain.

Shimeko, one of the special featured artists. Very ephemeral drawings.

toi8, another one of the special featured artists.

Nardack. I really love the vibrant colors and detailed illustrations.

Aoi Nishimata, a very prominent artist.

Kaori Minakami. I really want her artbook. =.=

Our famous Range Murata who did the cover of this artbook. Her work is very well accepted by fans and artists alike. A lot of people cite her and her work as their inspiration.

MorinoMao; very colorful illustrations.

And of course, Redjuice. =]

At the end of the book is a couple of pages of “Creator’s Data.” Sex, Birthday, Bloodtype, etc.

Overall a very good book to have and $30 is a reasonable price for a book of this quality. A word of warning is that there is some overlap with the “Girl, Illustrated” book, because some artists are featured in both books, and often this means that illustrations are repeated. Nevertheless, it’s still a very good book. If I had to chose between this and the other one, I’d chose the this book since it features more well-known artists, more illustrations (since the other one had 3 case stories) and because of the awesome cover. =]

Title: Girl, Illustrated: Japanese Manga, Anime and Video Game Characters.

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

Pages: 208 pages.

Release Date: October 5, 2010.

Retail Price: $29.95

Price I bought it for: $19.77

Place I bought it from: Amazon.com

“Nearly 500 sensational illustrations with the taste of manga and anime. Manga, anime, and video games are some of Japan’s modern cultural contributions to the world. Girl, Illustrated is a provocative collection by 100 professional illustrators who rise above the throng in this subculture. It features 500 high-quality works in the manga and anime styles—which have been getting more and more popular all around the world—showing female characters in various enticing poses. This book will be a must-have for manga and anime fans, as well as for professionals in the video gaming industry. It will also be a useful source of information and inspiration, highlighting hot trends for those in the advertising and publishing fields. Featured illustrators are all from Japan, such as mota, Akatsuki Kato, gorobots, redjuice, refeia, Nino, Masakichi and more.” - Amazon.

This is the American release and what I love about it is that it contains both Japanese text and English translations. The book is in B5 format. Dust Jacket has a nice glossy finish and the paper is thick.

That’s the theme of the book “Girls, Be Ambitious.” Needless to say, the book contains only illustrations of girl (except for a couple with male side characters).

There are also three case studies on how this form of art is used for promoting youth employment, railway lines and rural areas at the beginning of the book.

Explains how to read the book.

Two-page spread of the cover illustrated by Redjuice.

These illustrations are by the artist Onineko. Each artist has two pages: one full page illustration and one with information about the author such as web address, profile, e-mail, comments, inspirations and the media they use. Not all the authors fill in these blanks though.

Sayori! One of my favorite Artists.

I love John Hathway’s futuristic, space-efficient illustrations.

Chibi Sadoru.

Shin “Jason” Nagasawa.

Nagomi Itsuki.

LOVE Fuzi Choko! Wish I can find and purchase her artbook! >.<

Lots of Chibi art.

Hiromi Matsuo.

Another great Artist, Foo Midori! ^_^ I have her giant artbook!

Touhou Project Postcard Set

Part Two.

“The Touhou Project (東方Project Tōhō Purojekuto^?, lit. Eastern Project), also known as Toho Project or Project Shrine Maiden, is a Japanese dōjin game series focused on bullet hell shooters made by the one-man developer Team Shanghai Alice, whose sole member, known as ZUN, is responsible for all the graphics, music, and programming for the most part.^[1] The series was inducted into the Guinness World Records in October 2010 for being the “most prolific fan-made shooter series”.^[2] The Touhou Project began in 1996 with the release of the first game, Highly Responsive to Prayers, developed by the group Amusement Makers for the Japanese NEC PC-9801 series of computers. The next four Touhou games released between August 1997 and December 1998 also were released on the NEC PC-9801. The Touhou Project was inactive for the next three and half years until the first Microsoft Windows Touhou game, The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, was released in August 2002 solely by ZUN after he split from Amusement Makers and started Team Shanghai Alice. The Touhou Project became a media franchise spanning a steadily increasing number of official games, in addition to commercial fan books, light novels, and manga.” - Wikipedia.

Touhou Project Postcard Set

Part One.

“The Touhou Project (東方Project Tōhō Purojekuto^?, lit. Eastern Project), also known as Toho Project or Project Shrine Maiden, is a Japanese dōjin game series focused on bullet hell shooters made by the one-man developer Team Shanghai Alice, whose sole member, known as ZUN, is responsible for all the graphics, music, and programming for the most part.^[1] The series was inducted into the Guinness World Records in October 2010 for being the “most prolific fan-made shooter series”.^[2] The Touhou Project began in 1996 with the release of the first game, Highly Responsive to Prayers, developed by the group Amusement Makers for the Japanese NEC PC-9801 series of computers. The next four Touhou games released between August 1997 and December 1998 also were released on the NEC PC-9801. The Touhou Project was inactive for the next three and half years until the first Microsoft Windows Touhou game, The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, was released in August 2002 solely by ZUN after he split from Amusement Makers and started Team Shanghai Alice. The Touhou Project became a media franchise spanning a steadily increasing number of official games, in addition to commercial fan books, light novels, and manga.” - Wikipedia.

One of my Kimmi Junior Dolls. They’re adorable. ^^