Pile of assorted Japanese artbooks

At one moment I went on a shopping spree and order for myself  a ton of different artbooks from Japan. Total number were seven and it weigh four kilogram so I asked them to throw it all in one package and send through EMS service. I don’t have another choice, actually, because it was so heavy that it exceed SAL limitations. And it was full bloom artbook fest when it all came to me. I spent like a two hours to just glance through all of it. Some time ago, there were posts on my Twitter account with some photos of random pages that I thought were interesting. So now I will post all those photos in this post with short comments (probably I take it from my Twitter also). So lets start with looking at all the books that waiting for us today!

First one is “YuruYuri Fanbook”. I quite like Namori art and I’m a big fan of YuruYuri anime series, so most of today artbooks will have illustrations by Namori. This book is entirely black and white.

From the diagram on this page we can learn that my beloved Himawari is excellent at oppai and pretty good at tsukkomi. There are such diagrams for many characters with totally different parameters every time.

This book have a lot of short random manga segments. In this page there is Oomuro-ke cast with Nadeshiko’s girlfriend in the central panel.

Relationship chart for core YuruYuri characters. The circle at the top right is for Amusement Club and the circle at the bottom left is for members of the Student Council.

My another most favorite character in YuruYuri franchise is Sugiura Ayano, who is the cutest tsundere there. Especially with her hair down like in the bottom left corner here.

This looks like some early design or something. But I remember for sure that Himawari did has much more hair during her first appearance in manga like in this page, before getting upgraded to the current design.

The next artbook is “TV Animation YuruYuri Illustrations” and full of color pictures related to YuruYuri anime series in some way.

Kinda strange illustration with Akari goes on a trans-ocean flight and newer returns back or something like that. Or it just three girls looking into blue sky and I just seeing things.

Can’t hold and not take another picture of Himawari and Ayano. Also, I seen somewhere picture of a nendouroid figurine of Ayano taking this pose.

I want to take Chitose place in this illustration so I can be between the two best girls in the YuruYuri series. Also, there is wild tomato on the right page.

If there are somebody who is into glasses, Namori gets you covered.

There was a concert for YuruYuri fans that named “YuruYuri Live Event – Nanamorichu Festival at Pacifico Yokohama” where voice actress for Himawari and Sakurako – Mimori Suzuko and Katou Emiri were wearing the same dress as on this illustration when singing their image song together.

How can anybody pass those kigurumis (animal costumes/pajamas) without his heart skipping a beat? I can’t either.

Almost whole cast is in one picture here, except for Hanako and Nadeshiko’s classmates.

And chibi-kigurumi illustrations are even more lethal, especially when it’s Ayano and Himawari.

Next book is called “Yurunamori” and holds lot of assorted illustrations by Namori. It’s mostly from YuruYuri, but there are some random schoolgirls too.

It comes with cool cover that looks like shipping carton box, but just slide to the side when you need to take the actual book out.

On the first page we get to know that Namori is actually an old sailor-fisherman dude. I guess not, it’s something about fishing out that thing Namori uses as her mascot.

It’s good to know that I spend my birthday at the same day as my favorite oppai monster – Himawari.

Pile of yuruyuris in pajamas and their bed habits. And Chinatsu likes to touch Yui a lot it seems.

If characters in animal pajamas (kigurumi) didn’t give you heart attack already, then elementary school version of them will totally kill you.

Namori sure aimed for maximum damage with such illustrations.

I bet that Namori changed Akari’s older brother to older sister and started to give her more pages was when some readers argued that there is not enough tender sisterly love in YuruYuri. Now we have plenty of it.

And there are also pictures dedicated to Oomuro-ke characters in this book.

We all know how horrifying Chinatsu actually is, but this cat costume makes even her really cute. I’d pet this Chinyatsu.

Namori likes to draw her characters in different clothes, this time it’s maid dress on Himawari and Sakurako.

From there it’s mostly some random character’s illustrations like those cat girls.

And many illustrations of schoolgirls that are share some special (way too touchy-feely at times) relationships.

More schoolgirls in special relationships.

And even more than before.

It sure goes too far this time. Even the girl in this little sketch not sure if it all will go well in the end. Not that I discourage them from trying.

If I would want to show all those kind of illustrations here, it will take another post like this one, so I’ll stop at this picture. Also, I don’t want to strip Namori from all of her profit from this book. Now go and buy it!

Amusement club members and school council staff in cute dresses.

And core character’s siblings in home clothes and pajamas.

That scarf helps to hide all the most interesting part in this illustration, but I don’t think Ayano could withstand such close&naked bonding and not faint already.

The next artbook is wholly dedicated to theme most beloved by Namori – tender girls friendship, named “Yurihime front cover Art Book [truth]”.

This book uses many interesting tricks like cutouts in pages, metallic and glittering coating, extended pages and other.

This girl with short hair looks a lot like Nadeshiko for me. So maybe this book is about her high school adventures.

After that it goes overly dramatic with number of pages drawn in classical manga style. It was the last book from Namori for today, so I hope you all not tired enough to skip the rest.

Next book is the collection of illustrations and various information from 2013 Spring season anime Namiuchigiwa no Muromi-san (Muromi-san on the Shore).

Page for one of the most popular character from this series – Levia-san (or Leviathan), voiced by Nakahara Mai in anime.

There you can see how beautiful was Muromi’s tail when she was younger and not travel on ground that much. And on there right there is height comparison of main girls. Or should I say “length comparison”?

It’s actually from this page I got to know that there is an OAD that was released for this series and I missed it for some reason.

There are gorgeous line drawings of characters from different angles and variety of their emotions.

If we start to talk about beauty, this book have all those pencil and full color sketches of locations and backdrops that were used in anime.

And there are even more background sketches.

Page with the the types of supernatural beings that this series characters were based on. And we can see that Papi, for example, shouldn’t be looking like she is at all, if they were aimed for the closer resemblance.

Another artbook consist of illustrations, art and supplemental information about anime series “Kin-iro Mosaic” (Blond Mosaic) that aired in the Summer season last year and named “Kin-iro Mosaic Mosaiclopedia”.

Here is the main character – Shinobu Oomiya with her vast wardrobe collection. I prefer to call her ninja-girl and she is well known for her love for blond girls, mainly of British origin.

But we all know who is the best girl in this series and she is not other than shy and cute Aya Komichi (better known as Ayaya).

Well, I know that many of you like halfy Karen Kujo more, mostly for her speech pattern and voice, that she shares with one overly energetic (and constructed in England) Japanese battleship.

And if you still torn between them, then Ayaya in mermaid form should assure everyone who is the real best girl here.

As many of you should know by now, eyecatches are pretty important part of any anime series. And there are plenty of it.

Alice house in England where Shinobu stayed was drawn after actual house and interior design also resemble the original.

And there are more of gorgeously drawn backdrops and locations.

All those line drawings of location where the events of the anime happens are my most favorite part of anime artbooks. Here is also height comparison for characters and hints about how to draw them.

More line drawing of house interiors and school floors, so if you always wants to decorate your room after one that characters of this series live in, you have a great reference material now.

It also must be a ninjutsu technique to hide an assets like that in plain sight and Shinobu is apparently master of it.

The last artbook for today is not anime related, but collection of illustration by well known artist Kantoku. Name of this book is quite nonsensical, if not to say more – “Polyphonica Aphonic Songbird”.

Kantoku is mostly known for his illustrations for Henneko (Hentai Prince and the Stony Cat) series of light novels and anime series of the same name that follows after.

Though Kantoku usually draws much younger characters, this book mostly compose with illustrations of high school girls. And shrine maidens, as in this page.

Many praise Kantoku for his extremely cute and childish art style, and here it’s hard to say if the bunny girl on the left looks more cute than sexy (or equally sexy and cute).

Kantoku is also expert at drawing girls underwear of all kinds. I wonder if he specifically research its types and styles to achieve this level of expertise.

And here on the right is one of my favorite illustration in this book. I can’t pinpoint exactly who this costume intend to portrait, a teacher or an office lady, but I like it either way.

Lets finish this, already way too long, post full of pictures of cute girls, with illustration of a girl in the ultimate costume – wedding dress.

That’s all for today! I hope some of my viewers will like all those illustration and overlook my hand and fingers that shows up for no reason at some photos. I really like Japanese artbooks and own another ten or so of it beside ones that was listed in this post. So if there will be some interest for this topic, I could make a post to cover the rest of my collection. So stay tune!