Hunting the Elusive

Well, Cencoroll is going to be released on DVD soon, but I am still not yet convinced if it is worth a purchase. I’d probably just preview the thing (hopefully fansubbed) before making a decision; however, it does have limited appeal. It’s just the trailer, the character designs, and the Cenco creature itself don’t really appeal to me – that’s pretty much everything, isn’t it? I suppose it all depends on plot now, thus the need for a preview of the actual movie. Anyway, Aniplex et al released a fairly thin “Start Book” for Cencoroll, whose main pull to me was the artwork featured within, particularly that by Tiv (as a rare artist). [Release] [PNG]

Artists featured include mebae, Tiv, Purimari, TNSK, Goro, ms, Route 12, and Cosmicforge.

In addition to the artworks, the book also contains a few pages about the movie itself – you know the deal, it’s like one of those bonus program books.

Stuff covered include characters, a look at an animation sequence, and a plot outline.

Not really obvious from the thumbnail, but the image below is probably not safe to view at work. CLICK WARNING, obviously. Still, it’s mebae goodness.

TIV’s illustration, giving Yuki a very cute look. Setting at the iconic Shibuya crossing. Very nice. Also, a little manga thing by PRMR.

TNSK is also a pretty good illustrator, as is Goro. They seem to have retained the style of Cencoroll pretty well – we’re not seeing drastic re-interpretations.

MS’s stuff looks awkward man. I kinda get the look the artist is trying to go for here, but it just doesn’t pull together.

And that’s it, the end of the book.

Pretty small release this time, but I decided this was relevant to our interests because it’s just not something that is commercially available (kinda like the Clover movie program book from years and years ago). I did have another release already scanned and on the server which would have been posted today, but just received the booklet and decided to go with this. I will also be looking at the Tinkle figures which came in the same shipment some time later (or not, if they turn out to be disasters). In the mean time, check out a re-edit of my Japan photos on Pixels for nostalgia’s sake.