Lumen

The front cover utilises decorated initial letters (or initial caps) like those found in classical story books to spell out Lumen. In keeping with the plant/flower theme which decorates the letters, the character on the front wears a light dress with flowers.

As Lumen was released in Japan’s summer, many of the illustrations are summer-themed or set in summer, as well as the spring-summer transition.

The first four illustration are full-context illustrations, with detailed backgrounds and characters placed within them.

We then get two swimsuit/underwear, in the style which I would term Kishida Mel’s Atelier type illustrations, where characters take on lighter shading and are cuter, generally.

I will skip two of the more risque illustrations here and get to the school girls.

I’m not too sure what’s with Lumen but pixel peeping my scans seem to show a kind of blurriness. Perhaps it is an effect of Kishida’s art, or the printing. In any case, as a result of this I reverted to a more complex version of my usual noise reduction protocols in the hopes of striking a balance between cancelling out the noise and retaining the details.

Reactor Girl is a fairly high budget production for an independent book. It is around A4 in size (though a bit wider), 64 pages, and while soft-cover, has a full colour jacket. Cost is 2310 yen.

The cover is of course Rin, in nagimiso’s inimitable style.

The actual cover of the book beneath the jacket.

The first illustration (also from the cover) is from Quantum Voice. Unfortunately, the spread pictures are not stitchable as they extend all the way to the spine.

The original and the nitamago mix of Meltdown.

“Into the Reactor”.

Roshin Miku, extracted from the Roshin Yukai PV, I believe.

Hard RK mix version of Rin, which has been rendered into a figure.

Hanayurikago. Fantastic costume designs on this one, and we get a closer look later into the video. Especially great because it utilises traditional Japanese costume elements, in contrast to the futuristic style used in other nagimiso works. I am not too familiar with this PV and its background, but who is the black-haired person?

I have the poster for this (it came with the Hard RK poster)! A very striking pop-art style for Chemical Love.

A great rendering for Akuno.

I don’t think I really have to expound too much on the art style of nagimiso. The faces are relatively mature and “realistic”, especially because the eyes are close to normal-size. The colours and shading are subtle, and in many cases the face will remain white (but shaded) to give the stark and contrasty feel. A preference for warm colours, but subdued greens.

I am not really a rabid Vocaloid kind of person, so I didn’t know about these two PVs until I read the notes. The first is Dragon & Guitar from FARM RECORDS and Vocarock. The second is red dead guitar.

The extra section looks at the design for VN02 as its first order of business. We get a feel for the process, and a look in to earlier versions of the costume.

We then go into the PV archive, which looks at the various characters found in Meltdown and Hanayurikago.

We also have a making of for red dead guitar’s illustration, a spread of rough works, then comments. The DVD is in a kind of folder which is tucked into the book as an insert. I have scanned that too.

If you can get your hands on this book, I highly recommend it. It is, like the other books released by Vocaloid PV illustrators, extremely awesome, and I must say that even within those hallowed ranks, Reactor Girl is pretty much near the top in terms of quality and content.

Stellato Giada

Like the Fujitsubo-Machine release, Stellato Giada utilises a dark coloured cover, in this case black, and embossed aqua foil which isn’t picked up too well by the scanner, which is a pity, because the artwork on the cover is not replicated inside.

I have elected not to showcase the cover here as it is really not too effective. According to the end notes, the first illustration is by setsuna, the second is Bell.

We then get a diptych of ponytailed neko-mimi girls who mirror each other with different colours. and differences in expression.

The next illustration is a spread which appears to be a version of a illustration done for an earlier doujin work s.c.m.m.t vol 7, but perhaps changed to use another character from DuelDolls.

I love the colour transition in this illustration from blue to pink/purple. Although I must point out that the staple on this page is at a very unfortunate location.

I believe this is a so-called “noir version” of an illustration for a keyboard.

And these are probably just direct copies from Rabbit net dakimakura covers.

Once again, TINKLE issues a gorgeous illustration book, with unbelievably pretty characters, colours and shading. Stellato Giada is well worth a look at getting, although I have a feeling I say that about every single book by TINKLE.

Q: Why release such an archaic piece of data?

A: Well Janice, as I have stated many a time, we have no intention of allowing this issue to hijack our current campaign. It has nothing at all to do with the fact that we didn’t bother to order this until just recently. Readers have the choice between not downloading and downloading. But we believe our record speaks for itself in terms of quality and enjoyability, while the opposition has consistently undermined efforts to get this aid to those who really need it.

Q: The name of this release makes it quite obvious that this is from 2007…

A: Janice, once again, I will state that we have nothing to hide. While going down the path of not downloading will see readers wallow in apathy and incomprehension for the rest of the day, we believe it is simply not worth the risk of not using up bandwidth for something which could be awesome.

Q: Does this release have something to do with the fact that Shikata Akiko is in it?

A: Now look here. I know the media is very keen for the compact sound bite or the pithy quote, but the issues here are more complicated and nuanced than a single name can conjure. While certainly, a name like Shikata Akiko draws attention, many others have contributed thus far to our campaign, including Masaaki Nakayama, Maeiej Janas, Ryota Nozaki, Taro Hakase, Iwao Furusawa, Hiroki Kashiwagi, Takehiro Kunigi, and Jusqu’a Grand-pere, all of whom are great musicians in their own right.

Q: Yes, but is it not true that this is the only known footage of Shikata Akiko performing live?

A: Well, we think readers should be aware that she performs live pretty much every year or every other year, but while she is a great performer, we really think attention should be drawn to the other contributors who have worked so hard, and provided their immense talent to our campaign. While yes, the opportunity is present to sit back and not give this a chance, we believe our policies will win through in the end as readers realise the risk of another day without the fulfilment proffered here.

The cover, similar to the 2009 version, has little grids of art subtly placed on the jacket. Unfortunately, it seems my scanner does not have enough dynamic range to pick these up when illuminated with the scanner tube. So pick up a copy IRL for the full effect.

As evidence of the sheer amount of artists in pixiv Official Book 2010, the contents are five pages long.

One of the effects of cramming so many artists into a book is that most artists get one page, while some get two pages (a spread). To showcase any single artist properly, the individual art becomes pretty small.

The relatively low resolution of each of the images, combined with the screening effects of printing, meant I took a somewhat different approach to denoising this time. I took out one surface blur step, and while this resulted in somewhat more texture or grain, it kept more of the minute detail.

I’m not sure how the publishers chose which artists to use in pixiv Official Book 2010, because some of the bigger names aren’t in here. Perhaps they wish to showcase some of the less well-known artists. Of course, Archlich makes it in, as does the Korean artists Chris, which we have looked at before.

Cuteg also has an appearance. I will note now that pixiv Official Book 2010 has a lot of Vocaloid art, so they probably have an agreement allowing them to use those characters. In contrast, there is no Touhou art in here.

hoppang, another Korean artist, also features. Is it just me, or are there more Korean artists this year?

Or perhaps it’s because I am selecting the pages with Korean artists due to my affinity for their styles? Nardack, for example. :)

pixiv Official Book 2010 has a wide variety of art styles, which is not just limited to bishoujo art. Of course, I really only focused on bishoujo stuff.

As always with these kinds of catalogue-type art collection books, I think pixiv Official Book 2010 is really well worth the money for what you get, which is basically a great window into the art scene, being able to discover new artists, or get updated on the works of artists you might have stumbled across before, but did not bother to stalk.

Onineko, of course, deserves the page spread. BTW, I am finding it impossible to find her latest C78 book, which looks really awesome. But no one has it.

I really love artists who specialise in landscape/architectural drawings, and there are plenty of these showcased in pixiv Official Book 2010. Even better are those who put characters into the context of the scene.

While I have been quite selective in choosing the pages to feature in this review, I have only really covered a small selection of the excellent artists in pixiv Official Book 2010. That’s not to say that they are all excellent, but there is a very high proportion of “great” and “OK” art in this book. And they are all comfortably nice looking, unlike the more challenging art of publications like poppic.

At the end of the book, there are a few sections in the pixiv Archives chapter. They cover Miku Append, BRS, and the Arancia Project, which is an original character associated with Portugal or something.

Disclaimer: I only got this book because I could use the 3686 yen discount afforded by the vouchers from the Amazon Affiliate program. Yes, that’s the total income from that program I’ve managed to collect since I started using it, so thank you for clicking the Amazon links in those posts which had them. While admittedly it’s not a lot, it did offset the shipping costs and a bit from the items. I must say it’s not a very effective money-making method, but everything helps.

I also got something else in that package which I shall hopefully cover soon.

Fujitsubo Machine

The cover of Mon étoile is themed a dark blue, with the title in embossed glittery foil. The cover is further decorated with an illustration of Aries, executed with embossed blue holographic foil. This is not evident in the scans, but a subdued range of rainbow colours manifest themselves if you look at the cover from an angle.

Each illustration has a facing page which holds a sketch of the piece, as well as a description of the sign.

As you know, each zodiac sign has identifying traits, and Noizi has basically taken these traits and depicted them on the female characters. I will also note the costumes are rather archaic, in addition to being summery. In some cases, they connote Grecian dress or Egyptian dress, as keeping with the ancient world from which the zodiac arose.

Overall, Mon étoile has very warm colour palettes, although I really really like it when Noizi does characters with cooler colour hair, as they tend to be really sweet. In this case, this is seen in the last two zodiacs of Aquarius and Pisces.

Yes, I have skipped a number of illustrations here. Check them in the archive.

The last illustration is the collaborative work: unfortunately I cannot get the binding seam in this, so no stitching is possible. It is basically Aries rendered as an ikemen, and Noizi’s Taurus.

After the illustrations, there are around four pages of artist comments. It’s like an essay in there.

Overall, Fujitsubo Machine’s Comiket releases always tend to rule. While this time round, it’s a more conventional book form, Noizi always finds original ideas, and in this case, the zodiac, while not exactly 100% not-done-before, is certainly on the less portrayed side of things. To create 12 original characters with the individual personalities associated with each sign is by no means an easy task.

And that’s before we even get started on Noizi’s art style, which, while some might beg to differ, I think has remained consistently excellent over the years. Certainly I recognise differences in style between independently-released works such as these, and more commercial works like game CG illustrations. The shading seems more subtle, and the lines finer. Perhaps it’s just my imagination, though.

Additionally, I found the calibre of many of the artists in poppic Story to be rather lower than what I can recall from poppic Oriental, which bodes an interesting question for the next issue of poppic if they are, as I suspect, running out of talent (though really, this is not very plausible, as Korea has plenty of capable illustrators out there).

The front cover, with its Alice in Wonderland theme, is by Maggi, who quite curiously does not appear in any of the other pages. The back cover provides a quick thumbnailed look at the various artists being featured in this edition.

Unlike most Japanese illustration anthologies/magazines, Korean publications like poppic are not purely oriented toward illustrations of females. Of course I really only looked at the pages with illustrations of females, but don’t let that fool you. While yes, it does lean toward the male audience a bit, poppic Story is fairly balanced in terms of subject matter, with plenty of guys, as well as animals.

I don’t think I will bother going into detail on all the artists featured on poppic Story, simply because my Korean skills do not allow me to do so without a lot of pain. That said, I will comment on a few of the artists. Yang Gyeongil, for example, does some good bishounen stuff, but his illustrations of girls are also quite impressive. The black and white illustration above is especially evocative.

BARY utilises the ink-and-brush style to great effect, with the character faces often small, pale white moons contrasting with the black of the ink. Overall, because of the medium perhaps, they look like traditional scroll paintings.

Of course, BARY is not limited to black ink, with the tutorial providing a look into the entirely digital Photoshop workflow used to create the illustrations.

Druki, meanwhile, mostly does RPG-like art, complete with chibi-like characters and fantasy scenes.

I have skipped a few artists here to keep things short, but you can find some coverage in the archives. The next artist I really want to highlight, and for me, one of the best in poppic Story, is M.P, who does some very impressive art, not only in the illustration of girls, but also of scenery.

Check out the mastery of lighting, and the fantastic visions he comes up with.

This artist should be employed to do illustrations for Tolkienesque books!

Lee Seunghee seems to specialise in busty girls, but I think the very moody background art should have much more focus. The opening illustration, for example, is quite stunning.

BAKERY, an artist we have seen in the previous poppic, also gets a look in for this issue. This artist illustrates men almost exclusively.

1000Marie has a style rather more familiar to us, coming from a Japanese context, and in fact, her section is fairly substantial, with the interview as well as tutorial.

Aming is an artist who does very atmospheric work, and once again, I really like how the light is depicted, although the characters are really roughly styled.

At this point, I would like to draw back a bit a look at perhaps the bigger picture of poppic Story. First of all, what we note is that each issue of poppic has a theme, as indicated by the title. With Oriental, being the first to arrive, we were unsure as to what the trend was, but Story now confirms this relationship between title and illustrations.

I recall poppic Oriental has having some exotic locales and costumes, as befitting the Oriental theme. poppic Story, meanwhile, seems much more heavily populated by fantasies, folktales and fairytales: in other words, all the illustrations connote stories.

MIET is another illustrator we have seen previously, and as you can see, the girls presented here are all from fairytales or stories.

Plut (Lee Sunyeong), has a much more oriental (almost Chinese traditional style) touch.

The artist is also apparently influenced by ball-jointed dolls.

The poppic gallery section includes some very good art, by the usual genius Panamaman, as well as OLIVIA, Cho jang bak sal, Elderberry, etc.

Most of the art is excellent. If there is an artist I would like to say I really don’t like, it would be SHANTI, who depicted a very challenging piece of a slaughter on a duck farm. Additionally, Inzup (archive only) has a very appealing character design, until you look at the bottom half of the picture.

m&m’s style really reminds me of Tegami Bachi.

Once again, there is some very excellent art and discovery potential in poppic, but I felt personally that the quality of art, or rather the ratio of “good” (totally subjective, of course) artists has rather gone down. Some friends have pointed out that Korean art, especially those found in publications like poppic or the Apple collections, kinda have an uncanny feel. Certainly, compared with your usual Japanese art, they are quite unusual in both colouring and characters. Definitely, in this issue of poppic, I found the colours a bit darker and more solid that what I am normally used to.

Still, poppic remains, as usual, one of the better art compilations out there, and this is in comparison with the books coming from all three markets I have looked at so far, Japan, Korea and China.

YAYUYO

Yume Yume Sakura is 30 pages long (28, excluding the blank inside covers). It is full colour, and the art is unusual for the scene, to say the least. YAYUYO integrates multiple viewpoints from different points in time into each image, providing a complete perspective of the scene and action.

As suggested by the title of the book, it covers the sakura season, as opposed to Hana no Namae which took place during autumn. Given the theme, we can expect a lot of pink, but did we expect this?

That is the first spread, the one which establishes the context. The visual detail overload does not end here.

As earlier mentioned, YAYUYO puts multiple perspectives into the one image to provide a sort of narrative + context for each picture. All this is framed within the abundant phantasmagoria of the blooming sakura.

If that were not enough, YAYUYO has textured layers, smoke/clouds in different forms, and butterflies in the illustrations too. All this adds up to make every image a study in detail.

By this visual overload, YAYUYO succeeds in depicting the absolute gorgeousness of the Touhou curtain shooter games, the feeling of crowdedness which being beautiful, the little details, the pure texture of a screen filled with bullets and petals.

If you can get past the absolute beauty of each of the pages, you can decode the story depicted in Yume Yume Sakura. It involves Yuyuko on a sort of quest to find some kind of power, which she ingests, but is then struck down by an unexpected effect of the power. Or at least that was what I made out.

In a way, the story is like that of Hana no Namae in that the character does something evil and is “killed” in the end. If you have taken note of the excellent anime series Aoi Bungaku, you might remember the arc Sakura no Mori no Mankai no Shita (In the Forest, Under the Cherries in Full Bloom), which explored the mystically/psychologically scary side of sakura.

This is my own theory, but perhaps sakura could be seen in a similar way to how the Western tradition holds the moon. While it is a thing of beauty, it is also linked with evil and madness. In the case of sakura, especially as depicted by YAYUYO in all its glorious abundance, the overwhelming presence becomes somewhat daunting, leading to a sort of mad greed.

In the end, Yuyuko is buried under the falling mass of sakura petals. While by themselves or in small quantities, the petals evoke romanticism and nostalgia, in Yume Yume Sakura and indeed in Aoi Bungaku’s Sakura no Mori arc, it’s almost like a gentle but steady burial which finally subsumes the characters in death.

In a way, this depiction of sakura as being a mask under which lies decay and death is perhaps the one which strikes me most, and causes me to identify with the idea that the beautiful sakura can have its scary side.

I’m not sure if Yume Yume Sakura was intended to cause that tangent in thought, but aside from all that, I don’t think anyone will deny that the art of YAYUYO is outstanding, with mastery evident in all pages of this book. In fact, every page can be framed in a gallery as an independent work of art.

Regent Place has been around for some time, and given its location between Town Hall and the main cinemas in the Sydney CBD, the foot traffic should be pretty good. Unfortunately, narrower entrances and relatively subtle facades means businesses have not had a good run there. A large Asian supermarket which used to dominate the bottom floor died and was not replaced, and shops on the ground level have come and gone for lack of business.

Chefs Gallery opened just the other week, and replaces a Malaysian restaurant, which again, was deathly quiet, not helped by the dark interior decor.

To increase the visual impact of its frontage, Chefs Gallery opted for a relatively brighter interior, a very visible kitchen, as well as its name in a large, bright font. The top of the facade also fades in and out in different colours.

In a way, Chefs Gallery’s main competitor would be Din Tai Feng, located at World Square. Both restaurants have the visible kitchen aspect, and both received a roaring welcome from the Chinese community when they opened. In fact, queues have been pretty long at Chefs Gallery since it opened as everyone rushed to try the new restaurant.

Chefs Gallery opens at around 5pm for dinner, and by 6pm the queues would have started forming. There is no reservation (it doesn’t make sense for popular restaurants to reserve seats anyway). We arrived at 5:30pm for a party of nine. Unfortunately, the restaurant defaults to tables of eight maximum but they squeezed an extra chair in, and since the chairs are pretty spaced out anyway there was not too much of a crush.

Service, as expected from restaurants of this calibre, was excellent, although many of the wait staff are not too fluent with English, and some did not know the nature of some of the dishes. A few nice touches include a cover for the back of the seat if you hang your coat there. Additionally, staff in the kitchen do not use the usual face mask, instead opting for a transparent “mouth guard” which allows clear communication while combating contamination risks.

The menus have very good English descriptions and I think we would be hard-pressed to find any instances of Engrish here. Fairly simple, the menus do not have pictures of the dishes, and in fact there were no pictures of the food that I could see in the restaurant. It fits in with the style of the decor, I suppose.

The selections are mostly variations on a theme, and while the list is not as extensive as some restaurants, that’s not a bad thing, since it makes choosing that much easier.

The important part are the desserts, of course. While the cold desserts are quite tempting, we found most of them were various types of ice creams with different toppings. For true uniqueness, the hot desserts are the ones to go for.

Decor-wise, Chefs Gallery utilises lighted showcases of various Chinese objects including antique vessels and books. Lighting is pretty good, provided by rows of warm spot lights overhead, as well as bounced strip lights at strategic places. The only problem I really have is there is not much leg room under the tables.

A bar runs along the perimeter of the kitchen, and I took the opportunity while it was not too crowded of going up there to take some photos.

The mouth guards I mentioned earlier are visible here. As with Din Tai Feng, Chefs Gallery seeks to maximise the visual impact of the making of the food, including hand-stretched noodles, which is its specialty.

This noodle comes in pumpkin soup, and a side of fried chicken. Unlike the pumpkin soup of the Western tradition, this is slightly thinner and less rich, as well as being not too sweet. The chicken, despite its appearance, is actually quite light.

The pan-fried dumplings take on a slightly elongated form.

The steamed dumplings are fairly standard in presentation. The skin, while excellent, did not stand out for me as Din Tai Feng’s did (admittedly, DTF specialises in dumplings).

This green bean dish comes with thin pancakes to wrap them in, resulting in a very nice texture.

The fried rice with three types of eggs contains chicken egg, salted duck egg and century egg. It looks pretty normal, but if you are already acclimatised to duck egg and century egg, it’s an excellent dish with a great taste combination.

Otherwise, the normal fried rice with pork or chicken will serve as well, although after the triple egg rice, this felt like a bit of a let-down.

To spice things up, I added the spicy pork belly, which was very tasty, as to be expected from such a dish.

Prawn spinach noodle comes a striking green colour, accompanied by the prawns, as well as mushrooms and various types of seafood. The noodles are given extra texture by the mentaiko-type roe stirred into the dish.

The pan fried buns have a very good filling, while retaining fluffiness outside. Despite the fact that it is pan-fried, it is unlike the offerings of other restaurants and does not exude the overly-oily feel so common with this dish.

Desserts: we opted for peanut and walnut pastries, which come pretty small. They are very good, however. The walnut pastry, in particular, comes shaped roughly like a walnut, and contains half a walnut within.

The ice creams come with various types of toppings for the different types. The mango one has sweet potato, for example, while the green tea one uses Japanese style. I did not try them.

A highlight in desserts is the pig face sesame bun, which comes in a pair (one female and one male). The coloured parts are just coloured bun pastry. The black sesame filling is rich and very fragrant.

Another which is worth trying is the steamed pumpkin pastry dumpling with lotus paste inside. The menu said it is a “beautiful piece of art” and I concur. The pumpkin pastry itself is not too sweet, and this provides a moderating accompaniment to the more intense lotus paste.

Overall, I found the servings are pretty small, especially if shared among nine people. With smaller groups, however, they would provide the right ratio between being able to sample a wide variation of dishes, and having enough of any dish to feel substantially filled. Overall, the damage was around 22 dollars per person, which is not bad for a night out.

The staff were also very obliging in helping us keep a birthday cake in the fridge, and they brought it out with lighted candles and sparklers, and also gave the birthday girl an extra dish of the pig face sesame buns, which was a great touch. We also appreciated that there was no fee for this service, and tipped accordingly.

Each illustration is part of a two-page spread in the book, which of course has the illustration, and also a kind of write-up regarding the process of creating the illustration.

As you can see, each illustration is themed for the colour of the flower, and I suppose the characters are chosen based on the colour theme. No surprises to choose Hong Meirin for red, since this kanji for Hong means “red”.

Next up is Nagae Iku for blue. It is possible at this stage to get a good idea of the character design of takemikaduki, which in a way is fairly conventional, but has some factor which I can’t put my finger on which makes the artwork stand out somewhat.

Goes without saying that Sanae would be there for the green page.

Note that while for the most part, the illustrations in FLOWER retain the “normal” dress of the characters, takemikaduki does make a few changes here and there, which is quite refreshing. After all, we have seen Marissa in her witch outfit and Reimu in her red miko outfit any number of times already.

Black is offset by white, and I must say this adaptation of Marissa’s outfit into a white gothloli one is quite a radical move. I nearly couldn’t recognise her.

And the cover illustration of Reimu. FLOWER is actually a fairly substantial read if you happen to read Japanese. There are the artist notes accompanying each image, as well as this almost-essay thing on the Pixiv feature page.

Well, I think I might have bought the C78 release from this artist. In terms of content, I am fairly happy with the number of pages and illustrations in FLOWER and I quite like the style and colour elements. I think I might keep following this artist although I kinda want to see non-Touhou releases to properly gauge how skilled he is.