Hunting the Elusive

Well, after a bit of a delay, Gakken finally made their Headphone Girls: A Pictorial Book available this month. Cost of 1800 yen, ISBN 9784054042308. Page count 124. This review will be quite short, despite there being 40 main section illustrations (and then some), because this book is available everywhere, and it’s not hard to pick up at all. The question for the reader is, is it worth picking up? And my answer is yes, for 1800 yen, it is. [Review] [PNG]

The jacket cover illustration is by none other than Range Murata, with a distinctively steam punk design headphone and very cool display glasses. If you remove the jacket, you are left with a very clean black and white cover (not a greyscale rendering of the cover drawing).

Notably, this book has not one, but four fold-out posters attached to the inside cover. These posters are double-sided, so that makes for eight larger illustrations by artists who are not included in the main illustration section. I should also note that most if not all of the headphones in the posters are fictional creations.

First poster is a reproduction of the cover, and the other side is by Houden Eizo. I really like the strappy dress on the Houden Eizo girl.

I think in some previous postings, I said Chocolate Shop was involved in this book. When I first flipped through the book, I went straight to the main illustration section and could not find his stuff. Well, it’s a poster and damn it’s great! I love the sky, and of course his very distinctive character design.

On the flipside, we have LLO (Gothical Blade), another awesome artist with cute character interpretations. A girl in a kimono using an amp, and a headphone which could possibly be a real model.

Abe Yoshitoshi has the next poster. Although I am personally not a big fan of the darker style of this artist, I know he is very popular. You Shiina has the other side. A new artist for me, but very nice.

POP! And the other side, Shuji Sogabe.

Menu list (just readable on the bigger click-through picture). At the beginning of the book is a series of four CMs (more like magazine ads) for real models of headphones, made with collaboration between an illustrator and designer (presumably for layout of the ad).

There is then a short two-page introduction showing how the main section is laid out, as well as documentation of some of the music and movies used to test the headphones. A fairly balanced mix of Rock, Classical, Jazz, Pop, and OST (including Macross F OST 2 and the FF VII and XII OSTs). Movies used were BD versions of Dark Knight and The Sky Crawlers.

Note that if you want to actually read the moonspeak reviews on the headphones, you should just buy the book.

The first headphone is a Landport Music Ear Muff. I couldn’t believe this was a real headphone, but I guess it makes sense.

In keeping with the brief nature of this review, I only look at some of the highlights of the main section. One thing I should note is that yes, there are a lot of good illustrations, but there are also some which are kinda average, and one or two which I personally don’t much like. TIV, of course, I like.

I love Tsukigami Lunar (Lunatic Joker)’s stuff, but don’t seem to have followed up on it after the last time I saw the artist’s works. Now definitely following it.

Mebae does a nice yuri-tastic one, though it’s a bit weird having the same pair of headphones on the picture three times. And Putidevil’s illustration was one of the preview pics for this book, and is a highlight.

Miwa Shirow has a very unconventional look, but notable. More recent fans might have gotten into this artist because of the Koi ha Sensou video, which he illustrated for supercell.

For those who value realist shadings and such, Midori Foo. It’s the autumnal colours, I think, as well as the contrast in textures and the flowers and how the skin is lighted. Altogether a very stunning picture. I also like the rendering of the kimono by REFEIA. The closed-eye look is sweet, but a bit of a waste. :P Also, that particular illustration is for the AKG K-701, aka Mio’s headphones.

Lastly, we have to highlight Kozaki Yusuke, that gun-crazy KYMG person wot be awesome and stuff.

There is then a personal interview with Nobuo Uematsu regarding his headphone choices. He uses mostly STAX (SR-007A, SRM-007tA), and the Sony MDR-CD770.

This is followed by a short manga, a funny headphone choice flowchart, a guide to places to buy headphones from (Japan only), 10 guidelines to correct use of headphones, and I think an outline of the most important factors to do with headphone choice.

And that is the end of my personal review of this book. Scans were done with the Opticbook, so the colours turn out a bit more contrasty than normal, and are not guaranteed to be correct. I personally think 1800 yen for a 50-page artbook (effectively) isn’t such a bad buy, but if you are really interested in the audiophiliac aspects (and can read Japanese), this is even better value. Heartily recommended.

Now if only I can find enough stuff to bundle with the Pixiv yearbook… :P