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Aoi Nishimata Illustrations – Vivid

Nopy — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 05:02:31 +0000

Many of you already know that I’m a big fan of Aoi Nishimata, so it should come as no surprise that when preorders for her Vivid artbook came up, my credit card was already out of my wallet. Aoi Nishimata is a female artist who has worked on characters for visual novels including Shuffle!, Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai, Final Approach, Tick! Tack!, and Really? Really!

Released back in December 2010 by Kadokawa Shoten, Vivid is a collection of Aoi Nishimata’s illustrations stretching back to 2001. The book contains 144 pages, mostly of full colour illustrations, a bargain for 3000 yen.

Vivid comes with one very exquisite dust jacket. I don’t think I need to describe now gorgeous the dust jacket is, just look at it yourself. The gold lettering in the title gives it a sense of sophistication, and the red string tied to the girl’s finger actually runs through the entire book (a very nice touch in my opinion).

The actual front and back covers of the book are more simple, with a checkered pink/white pattern and Aoi Nishimata’s trademark cats. You’ll also notice that the book is hardcover, which helps protect the pages.

The first illustration is an extremely large (poster-size) fold out of a beautiful woman in her wedding gown. I should point out that this isn’t an actual poster, it’s meant to stay in the book. The paper used is very thick and heavy, this book was made to last.

On the reverse side is a bikini girl more suited for a dakimakura cover.

Now we get into the actual book. As I mentioned earlier, the red string from the dust jacket goes through the book, and the first instance is on a piece of wax paper protecting the inside cover illustration.

Here is the illustration without the wax paper in front. Hearts and flowers are major themes in Aoi Nishimata’s works, so this is an excellent introductory illustration.

On the second page is a blue variant of the same image that was on the dust jacket. Before I go any further, I should mention that Aoi Nishimata is famous for “recycling” her illustrations, just look at the gif below.

Is that a bad thing? No, I think it is done intentionally because it works. If you have a style that people like (even if it’s just the same face), then stick with it, even variants of the same thing can look completely different, which we will see later.

The book is split into 5 different sections: Colorful, Rouge, Cerulean, Scarlet, and Peach. The illustrations in each section are mainly the colour of their title (ie: rouge = red, cerulean = blue, etc.) and I will be going through them in order.

I felt like including this image because I liked the girls from Ore-tachi ni Tsubasa wa Nai.

Here is an illustration of the girls from Shuffle Essence+. If you look closely at Kaede’s dress, you’ll notice that the pattern on it doesn’t change at the folds. This is one of the unique aspects about Aoi Nishimata’s illustrations, patterns on clothing are never broken by folds or layers. You could argue that it’s being lazy, but I find the patterns actually draw your attention to the clothing more if they’re unbroken.

Here is an excellent example of Aoi Nishimata “recycling” an image to make something even better. Besides the colour contrast, subtle changes like the facial expression and flower petals make it look like two different girls rather than a mirror image.

Like I said, flowers are a major theme in Aoi Nishimata’s illustrations.

While I don’t like finding fault with one of my favourite artists, I can’t deny that there aren’t any. Aoi Nishimata draws beautiful girls and beautiful dresses, but comparitively, her skill at drawing hands and clear liquids is horrid (but still better than anything I could do). The girl on the right holding the wine glass shows both of Aoi Nishimata’s weak points. Fingers are often deformed and/or disproportionate, and liquids never seem to refract light properly.

Primula is probably one of Aoi Nishimata’s most-drawn characters, probably because she loves cats too.

These are some of the older illustrations that Aoi Nishimata has done. I remember having a couple of them on my computer before the great hard drive failure of 2003. Since then, Aoi Nishimata’s style has changed to include more attention-grabbing dresses and detailed backgrounds.

Here is another colour variation illustration. The thing they are holding is a heart. One of the downsides of this book and many others is that there is no white space left between the binding and the start of the images. This means that illustrations spanning two pages will always have a section through the middle that you will never see.

You can probably guess that we’re in the cerulean section of the book now.

The red string continues its way through the book. Looking at it now, I think it’s supposed to connect all of the “princesses” in the book.

The scarlet section of the book featured a number of illustrations from the visual novel Really? Really!

It’s not often you see cat girls in Aoi Nishimata’s illustrations. I love how she made the tails and ears look furry rather than solid. In the same illustration, you can also see the obvious difference in size between the fingers on the blonde’s left and right hands.

I had to include this illustration because I simply love Kaede, and I think her bikini’s cute. Unfortunately, it appears Aoi Nishimata’s struggle with fingers also applies to feet.

Some of you may recognize this illustration from the Maid Cookie review I did a while back.

More colour variants.

The final illustration is a princess with the red string tied to her finger. There is also a message here, but I have no clue what it says.

After flipping through Vivid several times, I have to say that it is one of the most impressive artbooks I own. The book itself was assembled with quality in mind, and the sheer number of illustrations made me feel like it was money well spent. Aoi Nishimata may not be a perfect artist, but her character designs and magnificent use of colour more than make up for the areas where she lacks. I think Vivid is worth getting even just for the princess illustrations with the red string. They are definitely the highlight of the book and the way it ties all of the sections together was very creative.

If you’re interested, the book is still in stock at Hobby Search.

Dengeki G’s Magazine 2009-12

Nopy — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 04:49:28 +0000

The cover of the December 2009 issue of Dengeki G’s Magazine features Kareha and Daisy from the game SHUFFLE Essence+, which I really hope will get translated into English in the future.

If you like SHUFFLE, then you might like reading Marriage Royale too. Although it’s not a game or anime (yet), the characters designs are the same as SHUFFLE. Currently there are 5 volumes of the manga released, all in Japanese though.

Although Kaede is still my favourite character, I think Daisy is pretty cool too.

I’m really looking forward to the Angel Beats anime. I didn’t like Clannad very much, but Kanon and AIR were two of my favourites so I hope Angel Beats turns out like those two. Then again, it could go either way considering all of those titles are from Visual Art’s Key.

I still haven’t gotten around to finishing my first playthrough of Da Capo (I think I’m close though). Hopefully, Da Capo II will be out and translated by the time I finish the first game (which may be a long way away).

I haven’t heard of this game before. It’s called “Koi to Senkyo to Chocolate” or in English as “Love, Election & Chocolate.” Not sure what exactly it’s about, but I like the school uniforms. Having all blue except for the chest area really makes it stand out. The names of the girls from left to right are: Satsuki Shinonome, Michiru Morishita, Isara Aomi, Mifuyu Kiba, and Chisato Simiyoshi. Personally, I like Michiru and Chisato ^.^

I still have no clue what Magus Tale Eternity is, can anyone fill me in?

Final Dragon Chronicle Guilty Requiem is a spinoff game of Leaf’s releases. It contains characters from some of their popular games, but in different settings. Tamaki Kousaka as a knight looks hot!

Did anyone get any of these goods? I tried to get the Yui nendoroid, but it’s sold out :(

Another addition to my Chaos TCG collection.

Deja Vu anyone?

I was kinda disappointed with the extra goodie that came with this issue of Dengeki G’s. Although Idolmaster is pretty nice, I haven’t used a pencil case since elementary school, and I don’t plan on using them again any time soon.

It looked kinda small, but the pencil case is big enough to fit pencils (or pens).

–> Subscribe to Dengeki G’s Magazine

Dengeki G’s Magazine 2009-11

Nopy — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 04:22:42 +0000

The November 2009 edition of Dengeki G’s magazine is my favourite so far, mainly because of this cute little alarm clock that comes with it. This edition also features a couple games from my favourite game company, Key, and other popular games like SHUFFLE Essence+.

I really wonder how similar Angel Beats is to Haruhi. People have already pointed out the similarities in appearance between Yuri and Haruhi, but apparently in Angel Beats Yuri also starts a club called the SSS which is really close to the SOS. The scene in the second picture above also reminds me a lot of when Haruhi first dragged Kyon into her club.

More SHUFFLE stuff. I think out of the new characters, I like Ruri the best. Maybe I just like characters with that band or whatever it is across their hair.

I don’t know what Twinkle Crusaders is about, but I like the character designs ^.^

Little Busters! Converted Edition came out for the PS2 back in December. Like the title says, it’s basically Little Busters! Ecstasy for the PS2 rather than on PC. The only difference that I know of is that there are no “adult” scenes in the converted edition. Speaking of the PS2, doesn’t anyone find it strange that so many visual novels are still being released on it rather than on the PS3?

Magus Tale is another game I don’t know much about. Anyone care to enlighten me?

I still don’t like the colouring of the hair in Steins;Gate, but that pink haired girl has got me interested. She looks funny in that maid outfit. The girl on the top of the right page looks kinda scary though with those yellow-green eyes of hers.

Here are some goods and figures that were available for preoder back in November. Did anyone manage to get a Mio nendoroid? I checked every online store I knew of on the preorder release date and they were all sold out :(

The Chaos TCG that came with this edition of Dengeki G’s is a character from Fortune Arterial. If this keeps up, I’ll have enough cards to make a deck after several years.

They’ve been using the same ad for the back of Dengeki G’s Magazine for a while. I wonder how much it costs to place ads on the back cover.

Like I said earlier, this edition of Dengeki G’s came with a cute little alarm clock. It was packed in a relatively big cardboard box, probably to keep it from being damaged.

The alarm clock is shaped like one of those old ones that you see in movies where you hit the top to stop it from ringing. The thing about this one though is that the bells on top are just for show, they don’t actually ring when the alarm goes off. Instead, when it reaches a set time, it beeps like a digital watch. It’s kinda cute to have and useful if you’re travelling somewhere, but I would have liked it more if the bells actually did ring like old alarm clocks do.

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Dengeki G’s Magazine 2009-10

Nopy — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 18:51:18 +0000

There were a couple of nice goodies that came along with the October 2009 edition of Dengeki G’s Magazine. I got a new Konomi figure and a little Love Plus booklet, but first lets take a look at some of the things featured in the magazine.

At the front of the magazine was some info on the Japan Illustrator’s Festival, which I believe takes place twice a year. If I had the oppurtunity to go, I’d be there in a heartbeat, some of the artwork there is simply gorgeous. I especially like Tinkle’s artwork; the image on the top left of the page was done by Tinkle.

It looks like the figure of Konomi that came with this magazine has another version which is cast-offable. It’s too bad they didn’t include that one along with the apron one.

Is anyone else excited about the upcoming Angel Beats anime? By my count, this will be the 3rd series that Key has gotten animated (the first three being Kanon, AIR, and Clannad). It’s too bad they didn’t decide to animate all of their games though. I would’ve liked to see a Little Busters anime or at least a Planetarian movie. Hopefully an anime will be made for Rewrite too after the game is completed.

This is the first time I’ve come across the title Sora wo Tobu, Nanatsu Me no Mahou. From what I can tell, it’s a sequel to Sora wo Tobu, Mittsu Me no Mahou which was a sequel to True Tears. That’s actually what the “true tears” above the title is referring to. I’ve never watched/played True Tears or its sequel so I don’t know if the series is any good. What’s got me interested though is the image on the top left of the right page. It reminds me a lot of Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha. I might watch the True Tears anime if it’s anything like Nanoha.

Here are some game images and details on upcoming Steins;Gate. Personally, I don’t really like what they’ve done with the hair of the main characters. I’d much rather have characters like in Chaos;Head with hair that was more anime-like.

A new Higurashi game came out for the PSP on November 26. It’s a sort of fighting game where you get to run around a large battlefield and fight two enemies along with a partner. It’s kinda cute to see what kind of weapons each of the characters has.

Fairy Life: Miracle Days for the PSP has some nice character designs, but it looks like a generic dating sim. I guess it’s nice for people who aren’t able to use their computers for a while.

Like I said before in a previous post, I really want to play SHUFFLE Essence+. Some people don’t like how Aoi Nishimata makes all of her characters with the same face, but I think she should keep doing what she’s doing. All of her characters are so cute so I don’t have a problem with it.

eden* is the newest game by Minori, the company that created the ef series and Wind ~A Breath of Heart~. Considering how beautiful Wind and ef were, I was expecting eden* to be very visually appealing, and I was not disappointed (at least not with the demo movie). You can take a look at some of the amazing art Minori has made for eden* here. I really hope it gets made into an anime like Wind and ef were.

Dengeki G’s has a small section where it shows some figures that are about to be released. I got myself a Hanyuu figure a couple months ago :)

As usual, the magazine comes with a free playing card. This time it’s of Riannon from Tears to Tiara. At first I thought she had a moustache, but upon closer inspection, she’s actually just holding a cookie in her mouth.

The back of the magazine features a Sekirei ad.

Like I said earlier, the magazine came with a couple goodies and here they are.

The first is a Love Plus booklet containing images and info on the three girls. In case you’re out of the loop, Love Plus is a hit dating sim that came out on the DS several months ago.

My favourite character is Manaka Takane, the one featured on the front of the booklet.

The other two get relegated to the back :P

The second little goodie that came with the magazine was this figure of Konomi from To Heart 2. It’s really similar to the figure that came with the previous month’s edition, being naked and all except for a single apron covering the front. The quality isn’t that great, but it’s cute nonetheless.

–> Subscribe to Dengeki G’s Magazine

Dengeki G’s Magazine 2009-09

Nopy — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 07:15:47 +0000

I know this is really late, but here’s the September 2009 issue of Dengeki G’s Magazine featuring the Setsuna Ogiso and Kazusa Touma from White Album 2 on the front cover. There are a few games that I’m looking forward to that are covered in this issue. Hopefully someone will translate them into English in the future.

Valkyrie Complex is actually already out on the PC. What I’m looking forward to more is the anime adaptation, which doesn’t have a release date yet. I really hope the anime animation doesn’t mess up the character designs though, the girls are all so cute the way they are (you can see them here). My favourite girl would have to be Mikoto Muller, twintails FTW.

There’s also a few pages detailing some nice goodies that you can buy. It looks like Dengeki G’s Festival is offering some nice stuff for Tamaki Kousaka fans.

When I saw this page, I immediately thought of SHUFFLE, but then I noticed that the girls were different (at least their hair and clothes are). These are actually the girls from the light novel and manga known as Marriage Royale. They were designed and illustrated by Aoi Nishimata and Hiro Suzuhira, the same people that did SHUFFLE. I guess that explains the similarities. I like the 2nd girl cause she reminds me of Kaede ^.^

Some info on White Album 2. I hear it’s supposed to be a lot better than the original White Album.

More Canvas = more bishoujo characters. I hope they make an anime out of this one too.

Anyone remember Chaos;Head? Well now they have a spin-off series Steins;Gate. Personally, I didn’t think the Chaos;Head anime was very good and that kinda stopped me from finishing the game. Hopefully Steins;Gate will have a better story than Chaos;Head.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to play SHUFFLE Essence+, but until someone makes an English version, I’d be stuck with trying to figure out what the girls are saying by looking up each word in the dictionary, and I just don’t have enough time for that. Maybe MangaGamer will decide to release it in English in the future, like with the original game. I’d also like it if they got Really? Really! too since Kaede is my favourite character.

Here are some more goodies that you can purchase. I still haven’t decided what to do with my extra Toradora figures. I’ll try to think of something by next week.

I got this Chaos (character operating system) card along with the magazine. Not sure what to do with it since I don’t play ChaosTCG.

On the back of the magazine is an ad for Sekirei. I thought the story was a bit too silly to really get into it.

Of course, the main reason I subscribed to Dengeki G’s was for the extra goodies like this. In case you don’t know who she is, she’s Kusugawa Sasara from To Heart 2. The figure isn’t as nice as ones that you’d buy by themselves, but it’s a nice little treat coming from a magazine.

–> Subscribe to Dengeki G’s Magazine

Dengeki G’s Magazine 2009-08

Nopy — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 05:09:11 +0000

This is the first time I’ve gotten an issue of Dengeki G’s Magazine, which I recently subscribed for. My main reason for deciding to get it was because of the goodies which I heard came with the magazine. The August 2009 issue comes with a small Tsukihime figure.

The figure is packaged in a small carboard box to keep from damaging it. Both the box and magazine were originally placed inside a plastic bag.

Unfortunately, cheap figures like these require some assembly.

This is what the assembled figure looks like. The quality is nowhere near as good as figures that you buy separately, but it’s pretty impressive for something that comes with a 990 yen magazine. It doesn’t stand very tall at about 10cm, and it’s pretty light since there wasn’t much material used.

Most of Dengeki G’s Magazine covers visual novels, so naturally they’d have stuff like Angel Beats in there.

It looks like the figure that I got is a part of a set of three. I kinda like the one on the bottom of the right page.

There’s also a section in the magazine devoted to hot anime girls of the summer 2009 season, something I’m sure many people would enjoy.

First in the lineup of anime girls is the wheat goddess Horo from Spice and Wolf II.

Canaan and Alphard from CANAAN show off their cool poses and guns.

I wonder what kind of things Battler is teaching Maria…

Haven’t seen Taisho Yakyuu Musume, can anyone tell me if it’s any good?

I didn’t think the plot for Shuffle was anything great, but I loved the character designs, especially Kaede. It looks like there’s a new Shuffle game called Shuffle Essence+, and of course that means more images ^.^

From what’s shown here, it looks like all the old cast will be back along with a couple new characters.

Lots of goodies for sale. I want that Mio poster on the bottom right of the left page.

Weib Schwarz seems to be advertising everywhere. They’ve included a free card in this issue of Dengeki G’s.

There’s a new Higurashi game for the DS, I hope it’s good ^.^

Dengeki G’s magazine certainly looks like it’d be appropriate for anyone who’s into playing visual novels and eroge. Personally, I’m just getting it for the extras and to flip through some game CGs.

–> Subscribe to Dengeki G’s Magazine

Dengeki G’s Festival! Anime Vol. 2