The fourth volume of the E☆2 Girls Girls Girls collection is centered around the use of 65 colors in the illustrations. This artbook was released on December 14, 2009, has a total of 96 pages, and includes illustrations from the E☆2 Magazines up to volume 22. Those of you that like anime art may recognize the art style for the cover of the book; it was illustrated by none other than Tinkle, in my opinion, one of the best illustrators out there. As usual, the artbook contains many illustrations from many different artists, below are a few of the ones that I liked.

This first illustration was done by Takuya Fujima (藤真拓哉), known for doing the artwork for the Nanoha ViVid series and the character designs for the Weiß Survive anime. I like the large eyes that he gives his characters, but I find their necks to be too long.

If you recognized the cover illustration, then you should recognize this one too as being one from Tinkle (てぃんくる). I always love their works, the girls are always so cute and have such amazingly detailed frilly dresses. If Tinkle weren’t as good at drawing frilly clothing as they are, I don’t think I would enjoy their artwork as much.

This illustration was done by Kota Murasaki (相澤こたろー). I don’t know anything about this artist, but I like how this illustration has a rather simplistic feel, but is actually quite nicely done if you take note of the lighting and the girl’s ponytail.

Here’s the complimentary swimsuit illustration for this post. This one was done by Yoshi☆wo (よし☆ヲ). If you take a look at his site, you’ll find some really cute moe-fied versions of the Evangelion girls. Yoshi☆wo seems to go for drawing girls with large eyes and large oppai.

The loli in this illustration was done by Kagura Mizuki (かぐらみずき). Note: Kagura’s site is very NSFW. Anyways, when Kagura isn’t making some extremely hardcore illustrations, she makes ones like this. The girl herself isn’t that special, but I like how Kagura drew the white dress.

Halloween is just around the corner, so what a coincidence that we’d find an illustration like this in here. This poor little witch was illustrated by Kasukabe Akira (カスカベアキラ). I absolutely loved everything about this illustration of Akira’s, from the broken broom to the witch’s expression, and the fact that she fell into a pumpkin basket full of treats ^.^

This lovely illustration was done by Kirino Kasumu (桐野霞). This is one of the few non-ecchi/sexy/moe illustrations in the book, and it didn’t need any of those things to appeal to me. It feels like it came from a fantasy novel, what with all of those little lights and that ball the girl is holding.

When I pick out my favourite illustrations from these E☆2 artbooks, I try not to look at who the artist is and just enjoy the art for what it is. With that said, A=g must be an excellent artist because I seem to pick out his illustrations quite often. Not only are the girls in A=g’s illustrations cute, they always seem to fit perfectly into the scene that has been created. You can see more examples of what I’m talking about at A=g’s Pixiv page.

The last illustration to catch my eye was this one by Hato Rami (羽戸らみ). I don’t know what it is about this illustration, but it feels like it came out of an old-school manga. Taking a look at Rami’s other illustrations, they all seem to have an old fashioned feel to them, but they’re all so modern. I think the way he shades in the hair and adds those white dots has something to do with it.

While I only showed some of the illustrations that I liked, E☆2 Girls Girls Girls contains much more art from various artists. Surprisingly, while the previous volumes did not have anything revealing beyond the usual panty shots and bikini’s this volume had a lot of ecchi content. I think there were around 10 illustrations with bare oppai, something to keep in mind if you’re planning on picking this up.

Related posts:

1. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 1
2. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 3
3. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 2

Today I thought I’d share some of my favourite illustrations from the first volume of the  E☆2 (Etsu) Girls Girls Girls! collection. I’ve actually had this artbook for nearly a year now, but never got around to posting about it until now. Like volumes 2 and 3, there are also special categories in volume 1, but these ones are more generic. The first section starts out with gravure illustrations, and after that are a series of smaller categories such as maids, twins, and glasses. These pages were really hard to scan without actually tearing the book apart, which is why you’ll notice one side is a little blurry in all of the pictures. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the cover illustration was done by none other than Tony Taka, who I’m sure many people have already heard of.

This picture above is another illustration from Tony Taka (http://www.bekkoame.ne.jp/i/taka_tony/). The thing I like about his illustrations is that they’re always smooth and usually simple. His characters also have relatively soft-looking eyes.

This goth illustration was done by Hiro Suzuhira (http://heart-work.info/). I like the girl’s outfit, but I think her ear looks a bit weird.

This cute little girl was drawn by Akane Ikegami (http://akanemakesrevolution.blog121.fc2.com/). Sometimes I find that eyes drawn this way look a bit weird, but I think it looks perfect here. I also liked how some of the cherry blossom petals were blurred to make it feel like its windy.

On to the maid section, here we have an illustration by Kiba Satoshi (http://www.din.or.jp/~kiba/). I thought the mini-tie was a nice addition to the regular maid outfit, and she looks cool holding a sword.

This maid was illustrated by Kaya Kuramoto (http://home.att.ne.jp/yellow/kuramoto/). Girls with guns are cool, but does anyone else think that it’d be really hard to reach for the gun in that position? The gun also seems a bit too big for the holster. Anyways, I liked how Kaya drew the maid’s face, she’s like a ghost or something you’d expect to see in a horror anime/game.

Here’s the last maid, I promise. Its illustrated by Momoko Sapporo (http://www.cc.rim.or.jp/~momoko/). It wasn’t so much the art that I liked, but the girl just seems like she has a really spunky personality which you don’t normally associate with maids.

These two twins were illustrated by KEG (http://www009.upp.so-net.ne.jp/keg/). I liked the old-fashioned feel of this illustration, and the only problem I could find with it is that the lower twin’s right elbow seems a litle too sharp.

Masato@Takashina (http://ts-web.dojin.com/hjo/) did this illustration. I thought it was interesting how the colours are almost like water-colours, but the patterns on the girl’s clothing is too detailed for that.

This one reminded me of Aoi Nishimata’s work, but the top of the page says it was illustrated by Okira. I couldn’t find any information on this artist, so if anyone knows who he is or if he has a website, feel free to share.

What I liked about this illustration by Mikeou (http://www2.odn.ne.jp/~cai16580/) is how he somehow managed to merge a maid outfit with a school uniform. At first I just thought it was an apron, but part of it is underneath the school uniform.

Anyone who follows anime/manga/game style art should be able to recognize this art style. This illustration was done by Tinkle (http://www.tinkerbell.vc/), famous for their beautifully detailed art that usuallly have cute girls wearing really frilly dresses.

This goth-loli girl was illustrated by Miyama-Zero (http://miyama0.dragon.gr.jp/). While the dresses in his art aren’t as frilly as in Tinkle’s, I still think it’s done really nicely.

I thought this girl looked really cool, she’s illustrated by A=g (http://easyplan01.blog10.fc2.com/). She looks like an angel you would see in some fantasy game, complete with a halo, crosses, and a staff for her weapon :)

The sunset in this illustration by Yuunagi Futaba (http://ps-hutaba.net/) was brilliant, I love how the colours blend together here. I also thought it was funny seeing an abandoned catgirl (instead of a cat) in a box.

Here’s an illustration by Miyama-Zero again. After looking at this second picture, it seems like Miyama-Zero draws his characters with rather large heads.

I know the yellowish colour in this illustration by Yuuri Nishiwaki (http://yuuri.happy.nu/) was intentional to show that there’s a window and setting sun, but I think this would’ve been better without it.

The last image I’d like to share is this one by Yukiwo (http://yukiwo.com/). I just adore this girl’s little top-hat, and she looks like a doll in that dress. I guess the cemetary is supposed to give it a dark feel, but it just doesn’t feel very dark to me.

There are a total of 75 full-page colour illustrations and a lot of monochrome illustrations at the back. Most of them are done by different artists so you get a lot of different art styles in here. While it’s a bit troublesome for someone who doesn’t know Japanese (like me) to try to look up the names of these artists, it’s definitely a good place to discover new art by people you might not have heard of.

Related posts:

1. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 3
2. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 2
3. Train Station Girls

Figures

Unless this is your first time here, you’ll know that I’ve been collecting figures for a while. I bought my first figure back in August of 2007 – a 1/8 scale PVC figure of Haruhi by Max Factory. I later found it it was a bootleg, but managed to get a hold of an authentic one a couple months later. The detail that was put into the sculpt and painting really impressed me and that was what got me started on buying more figures. I got my first nendoroid soon after that, Light Yagami from Death Note, and once again I was really impressed with the detail. Currently, over a third of my figures are nendoroids. Pictures of my figure collection are below. Some of my newer figures aren’t displayed because I haven’t opened them yet.

You can see a full list of my figures at MyFigureCollection (aka Tsuki Board).

Manga

Despite watching anime since I was a kid, I didn’t really get into reading manga until much later. The first manga that I read was I”s by Masakazu Katsura. I was a teenager in high school when I read this and it just blew me away. I”s was what really got me off the shonen/action genre and into romance/drama such as Fruits Basket, Love Hina, and Pastel.

Right now my manga collection consists of Chibi Vampire (aka Karin), Comic Party, FLCL, Fruits Basket, The Legend of Chun Hyang, Magic Knight Rayearth, Mamotte Shugogetten, Nadesico, Pastel, RG Veda, Sailor Moon, School Rumble, and Tsubasa Chronicles. As you can tell, I really like Clamp’s works. If I could only pick one series to keep out of all of these, it would have to be Sailor Moon. It was one of the first successful manga in North America so it was extremely hard to find and very expensive, not to mention that Sailor Moon was my favourite show back when I was a child.

Magazines/Artbooks

My magazine and artbook collection is still pretty small since it’s the most recent thing I’ve started collecting. Right now I’m subscribed to Megami, Dengeki G’s, and Nyantype magazines. I also try to get a copy of the Etsu Girls Girls Girls! collections when they come out.

My main reason for collecting these magazines/artbooks is because of the beautiful artwork. After that, I just want the extras that come along with each magazine issue ^.^

Games

Videogames have been a big part of my life ever since I picked up a light gun and shot some ducks in the game Duck Hunt on the NES. Although I only really play on my XBOX 360 nowadays, I still have an NES, SNES, N64, Dreamcast, PS2, Gameboy (original), and NDS.

My favourite games for each console are: NES – Duckhunt, SNES – Super Street Fighter 2, N64 – StarFox 64, DC – Capcom vs SNK 2, PS2 – Need for Speed Hot Pursuit, Gameboy – Tetris, NDS – Ace Attorney Series, 360 – Gears of War. Although I do enjoy playing JRPGs, they never became my favourites, probably because once you’ve finished the game there really isn’t any point in going back other than to get some more items or fight some more monsters. Also, in case anyone is wondering, I do have an XBL account, so if you’re interested in playing a game with me just email me and I can give you my XBL name. Just note that I am pretty busy sometimes so I might not have time to play anything.

Yu-Gi-Oh

I got into Yu-Gi-Oh a bit late so there weren’t many people to play against, but I did manage to amass quite a few cards as you can see here.

I even managed to get the original Kaiba and Yugi decks (though they were opened). Right now, my main deck uses Pikeru and Curran with a ton of support cards to freeze my opponent’s movements and drain their life points while increasing mine. It seems to work great most of the time. My favourite card in my collection is Dark Magician Girl, she cost quite a bit, but she’s such a cutie that I had to get her.

Sailor Moon

The collection that I’m most proud of is my Sailor Moon card collection. Like I said earlier, Sailor Moon was my favourite show when I was a child, so naturally I wanted a bunch of Sailor Moon merchandise. I started my card collection when I was 8 years old and I would trade cards with my friends once or twice a week. My collection didn’t really get very big until several years ago when I started buying cards off of girls that had grown out of Sailor Moon and from parents whose daughters had moved out and left behind their cards. It’s kinda weird knowing I’m one of the very few guys in the world that collect these cards while most other collectors are female. In total I have over 1300 unique cards in a very thick binder, but my collection is far from being complete. What sucks is that most of these cards are over a decade old (some are approaching 2 decades) so it’s getting harder and harder to find the cards I need to complete my collection.

As you might be able to tell from the above pictures, I have some cards that I’m missing here and there. I’ve listed my complete collection below:

Hero Collection

Hero 1

1, 4, 8, 9, 16, 17, 20-22, 24, 27, 29, 31-34, 36-38, 40, 42, 45, 48, 51, 52, 56, 60, 63, 65-67, 74, 76, 77, 82, 89, 90, 99, 100, 104-106, 108, 109, 122, 127, 132, 137, 142-144

Hero 2

145, 146, 148, 149, 245, 250, 252, 254, 259, 264, 283, 290, 293, 295, PC 28

Hero 3

306, 309, 313, 314, 316-318, 320-323, 325-327, 329-336, 338-345, 347-385, 387-384; PC 34, 40-42, 44

Hero 4

385-389, 391-395

Hero 5

WGL 1-3; PC 1-10,12-16; LC 1-12

5^th Anniversary Memories

12,14,15,17,19,22,25-29,33-56

 

Cardass Series

Carddass 2

35-70

Cardass 3

71-112

Cardass 4

114, 118-154

Cardass 5

160, 161, 164, 165, 168, 169, 171-173, 175, 176, 178, 179, 182, 183, 186, 187, 190, 192, 194

Cardass 6

198-201, 204, 206-208, 211-214, 216, 217, 219, 220, 222-226, 230-236

Cardass 7

240-246, 249-252, 254, 256, 258-260, 262, 264-267, 269-273, 275, 278, 279

Cardass 8

281-285, 287, 288, 290, 294, 296-303, 305-308, 312-315, 317-319, 321, 322

Cardass 9

323-343,345-357,359-363

Cardass 10

368-370,372-391,394,396-405

Graffiti

Graffiti 1

1, 12, 16, 25

Graffiti 2

46, 49, 59, 62, 65, 72, 75, 78, 82

Graffiti 3

87-101,104-107,109-117,119-126

Graffiti 4

127-130, 132, 134-136, 138-140, 142-149, 151-159,161-165, 169, 170

Graffiti 5

171,173-175,178-183,185-191,193,195-198, 200, 203, 204, 206-208,211-213

Graffiti 6

215-232,234-256

Graffiti 7

258-300

Graffiti 8

2, 4-9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 19

Graffiti 9

4-21

Pull Pack

PP1

41

PP2

49-58,60,62,63,65-72,74-77,81,83-87,89

PP3

95,97,99,103-105,109,111,114,115,118,119,122-126,129,133,134,139-143,145,146,156,158-161,168,169,171-173

PP4

175-179,181-216

PP5

217,219-222,225,229-263

PP6

265,274,276,277,279-283,286,287,295-302

PP7

315-335,338-368

PP8

377-384,386-424

PP9

425-466

PP10

488,502,503,508

PP11

509-550

PP12

557,560,569,572,581,584,592

PP13

613,615,638

PP14

647,650-657,661,670-678,680,683,691-693,698,701,702,704,706-735,737-741

PP15

742,743,745,746,748-767

Sailormoon World

World 1

N14,N16

World 2

N1-N36

World 4

N6,N17,N28

Battle/Private

Series 1

2,4-20

Series 2

1-21

Banpresto

Sailormoon Set 2

10,14,15,18,20,24,27,29,36

SailormoonR Set 1

1-18

SailormoonS Set 1

8,10,12,13,14,20,22,24

SailormoonS Set 2

10-12,15,18,19,21-24

Sailormoon SuperS Set 1

14

SailorStars Set 1

7,11

If anyone out there has some cards that I’m missing (ones that aren’t listed above), I’m willing to trade. I have a LOT of duplicates so just send me an email with your offers and what you want in return and I’ll check to see if I have extras. Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, my collection is worth well over $1500 and 14 years of searching so I’m not selling it.

So that wraps up all the things that I collect. You can probably tell that once I start collecting something, I can get pretty obsessive with it, which might not be a good thing. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed the peek into my other collections besides figures and magazines. I’d love to hear about what everyone else likes to collect so feel free to leave a comment, or even make a post like this one on your own blog, maybe we’ll get a trend going :)

Related posts:

1. Sailormoon Cards
2. 4 Month Loot

Along with E2′s (Etsu’s) Girls Girls Girls! volume 2 illustration collection, I also bought the volume 3 illustration collection. This volume focuses on the cover girls of all the E2 Magazines from volumes 1-16, the poster girls from volumes 1-15, and the pick-up girls from volumes 1-7.

On the inside cover is another illustration of the same waitress girl on the front cover, but with different coloured clothing and background. The illustration was done by artist Tony Taka, who seems to have quite a few of his works published in E2 Magazine. If anyone out there think this girl looks familiar, it’s because Tony Taka did the character designs for ”Sora no Iro Mizu no Iro”, which you might have seen. You can see the similarities in the screenshot below (especially in the eyes and face):

The book also features other artists that regularly appear in E2 Magazine. Here is an illustration done by Aoi Nishimata, who worked on the character designs for SHUFFLE!, Tick Tack!, and Really? Really! I guess that’s why all of her works remind me of Kaede, Asa, Nerine, Sia, and Primula ^.^

This illustration was done by Misakura Nankotsu. I like the school uniforms that the girls are wearing, it reminds me of School Rumble. In case you can’t read the text behind them, it says “Kumanozawa Foolish Sisters”.

Carnelian’s work seems to always have very large oppai, if you don’t believe me just look up “Kao no Nai Tsuki” (“Moonlight Lady”) or “Yami to Boshi to Hon no Tabibito”, note that both are NSFW.

Another illustration by Tony Taka. What I like about his works are the soft faces that his characters have.

Can anyone who reads kanji tell me the name of this artist:

Tinkle’s work is also very well-known, and you can probably tell why from the illustration below. All the detail put into all the frilly clothing really makes their art stand out. There was also another one of their works on the adjacent page, but with bare oppai showing, I thought it best not to post it here.

A girl in a white dress with a pink umbrella taking a stroll through the woods. Sounds like a picture-perfect scene, and Aoi Kimizuka portrayed it very well here.

I really like this illustration done my Kantoku. He also does quite a few illustrations of popular anime characters.

Another work my Tinkle. Notice the frilly clothing.

Somehow pink hair and green eyes seem to fit perfectly when drawn anime/manga style, but look so weird in real life.

This fox-girl was done by Hiro Suzuhira, who also worked on the character designs for SHUFFLE! alongside Aoi Nishimata. It looks like Suzuhira provides a little  more fanservice with a bit of panty flashing :)

Here’s another work by Hira Suzuhira that I just loved. The detail in this illustration is amazing, especially the little flowers on the girl’s fingernails.

Once again I can’t read the name of this artist, but I like the art style.

Here’s another piece by Misakura Nankotsu, this time there’s no school uniforms. I wonder how often you’d find a girl lying on the floor in her underwear and smiling at you.

This girl reminds me of Nunnaly from Code Geass, drawn by Aoi Kimizuka:

More of Tony’s work. I think he likes tall, slim girls with brown hair.

This one looks really nice, but a bit scary at the same time.

Cute nekomimi girl by Teinkuru.

And at the last section of the book are the E2 pick-up girls:

Back cover:

Like the second volume of the Girls Girls Girls! illustration collection, this one was definitely worth the buy. The book contains 103 pages with over 70 illustrations, some of which span two pages. I’m really looking forward to the 4th volume now ^.^

Related posts:

1. E2 Girls Girls Girls! 2
2. Train Station Girls

I’ve heard that E2 Magazine (also called Etsu) had really nice artwork so when I cam across volume 2 of the Girls Girls Girls! artbook I decided to get it, and I wasn’t disappointed. This volume contains artwork of girls streatching across two pages for each month in the first section, and a girl representing a region of Japan in the second section. In total there are over 70 colour pages of artwork from various artists. To give you an idea of what the artwork is like, I scanned some of the pages of the section with girls representing different areas of Japan. (sorry for the poor quality, but holding a perfect-bound book open over a scanner is harder than it sounds)

Hokkaido:

Aomori:

Iwate:

Miyagi:

Chiba:

Kanagawa:

Toyama:

Aichi:

Mie:

Kyoto:

Nara:

Ehime:

Kochi:

Nagasaka:

Oita:

Miyazaki:

Back cover:

If these works of art don’t impress you, I don’t know what will. When I was flipping through this book, the quality of the artwork just blew me away. It was really hard to decide on which pages to scan since they were all so pretty, but I somehow managed to pick some favourites. I especially liked the Miyagi, Aichi, Mie, Nara, and Kochi girls. The number and barcode on the Mie girl reminds me of those tags they put on endangered animals. I really liked the art style for the Nara girl since you usually don’t see works like that. The Kochi girl also looks pretty cool, minus the fact that she’s holding a giant fish.

There were some panty shot images like the one for Hokkaido and Oita, but I felt that these were overshadowed by the works that included more detail and colour rather than a scene that would appeal to ronery otaku :)

I was hesitant to buy this at first because of the price, but after taking some time to browse through it, I’m really glad I decided to get it, definitely worth it if you like anime/manga girls.

Related posts:

1. Train Station Girls