Hunting the Elusive

According to our holy source of Engrish, Akibablog, the main appeal of The Grimoire of Marisa (ISBN: 9784758011525, 1500 yen) lies not in its pictures, but in the text. I quote: “[The book is] a document [purportedly]…that Marisa Kirisame wrote. It collected a study of spell cards and their examinations. It introduces different kinds of spell cards with photos of games and illustrations. Marisa talks lightly and generously about them like she always talks.” Reviewers invariably comment on the voice of Marisa which is effective throughout the entire book. “[She] writes very important information like they are not important at all; some interesting facts appear and disappear. Some gags are written in places.” As such, the review I present herein must needs be seen as only a visual skimming of the surface of this volume. To persons linguistically capable in the Japanese language, this book represents a treasure grove of in-jokes and data. [Review] [PNG]

The Grimoire of Marisa includes a CD, which I will not cover here, since it has been available on torrents for some time. Briefly, the CD contains a number of wallpapers based off the book jacket cover illustration as well as two newly composed songs by ZUN.

Since that illustration has been covered digitally, it makes no sense for me to scan it and risk the debilitating effects of after-processing. Therefore, my review includes only the hard cover, without the jacket.

Unfortunately, the gold embossed foil means scans do not turn out particularly spectacular. Suffice to say there is a magic circle at the back of the book.

Scattered throughout the book (which is thick with technical information on spellcards by different foes, covering a wide range of games) are 22 illustrations. Some names first then: The cover illustration is by Kususaga Rin (唖采弦二) of Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red fame. The interior content illustrations (i.e.: the bulk of today’s review) are by Moriki Takeshi (守姫武士 GREEN GARDEN).

As one can see, the illustrations show the characters executing their spell cards, usually against a fairly shocked Marisa.

They cover a wide range of characters and their varied attacks. I must say that personally I am partial to Touhou illustrations which depict attacks, simply for the great effects of light and complexity which are the hallmark of danmaku shooters.

Moriki Takeshi’s characters are very cute, though I note the eyes in this book are less complex compared to the very alluring illustrations on the artist’s homepage.

I think many of these illustrations would look really good in their full digital form, but due to the printing quality and the paper stock, it was not feasible to remove all the texture noise, resulting in a kind of colour pencil look.

What? Alice without Shanghai and Hourai? Is that a burning straw doll?!

Some very powerful effects here, though less stunning than say Capura L.’s works.

I think the inadequacy of the printing resolution becomes quite obvious in the 600 dpi scans, with various jaggy lines. Obviously, I recommend getting the JPG of this review.

Yes, that’s orientated correctly. I had to double check with the book to make sure I had not inadvertently rotated some pictures.

High degree of bullet complexity for Sakuya. She’s in chibi form too.

The last illustration is that of Marisa writing the tome, occurs during the closing text of the book.

Note that scans for this review post were done via the book-scanner. I’ve given up trying to calibrate that scanner, but the colours seem pretty good this time round (it only gets problems when scanning stuff with very very subtle colours, I think). I adjusted levels to the white parts of the pictures are actually white (the scanner imparts a bluish tint to the scans). So as mentioned before, no guarantees on colour accuracy.