Hunting the Elusive

Akata Itsuki’s Excellent Punitto was released 15 September 2009. Prior to this, I didn’t come across many of Akata Itsuki’s works, although I believe he does mostly…well, even after looking through the index, I’m still not sure what he specialises in. Some games, I think, like Karma 13, light novels like Dragon Crisis!, and of course, quite a lot of stuff for a number of magazines like Tech Gian. This artbook, ISBN 9784048680363, 144 pages, is part of the Moeoh Selection line of volumes, and published by ASCII Media Works. Please note that this review includes illustrations with fan service and thus may not be safe for consumption at work. [Review] [PNG]

One of the first things which struck me when I looked at the book was the distinctive style of Akata Itsuki, with very round eyes, and very subtle pupil shading, such that at first glance, the eyes look dead. Colour-wise, Akata Itsuki prefers bright and vivid colours.

As is immediately apparent from the cover illustration, this artist does not shy away from copious amounts of fan service and pantsu shots. In fact, this artbook contains bare torsos in a few scattered illustrations.

Excellent Punitto includes one single-sided fold-out poster at its beginning. Already, I think, we have an indication of the number of styles that this artist adopts, although that doesn’t become apparent until later in the book.

Actually, since I only scanned some of the illustrations which I liked, I’m afraid there isn’t much by way of making my point. In any case, this book contains the artist’s current style, which I would class as somewhat near Tokumi Yuiko’s on account of the eyes (but not really), as well as what I presume to be earlier works, which are not in my taste (like H-game illustrations from 1997).

As a matter of fact, I find it quite difficult to describe Akata Itsuki’s style, possibly because the art in Excellent Punitto is not arranged chronologically. We see him switching between different styles, though I would really identify his art by the milky coloured eyes with the strangely subdued pupils (which are sometimes elongated, giving a decidedly feline look to the characters).

That said, there are times he switches to more conventional styles, in which case I would be hard-pressed to identify him as the artist in the midst of so many other typical moe-style artists.

As with most artbooks, I found there were quite a number of illustrations I didn’t like, but equally, I could pick out one or two gems, which I have presented here.

Besides my usual critiques regarding the facial part of the artist’s illustrations, I think we should also pay attention to the hair, which I think is treated with an observant and “accurate” manner.

For some reason, I really like the gray-haired maid, or whatever she is.

But yeah, pantsu much?

I believe this series of illustrations were done for Tech Gian (well, according to the index, anyway).

There are four “copyright” illustrations, such as the one on the left, which is Disgaea. I know Disgaea is older, but when I see that character nowadays, I just think “Amae Koromo”.

The section for Dragon Crisis! opens with a pretty stunning picture of Rose. In fact, it’s such a good picture I feel Akata Itsuki should have put this illustration as his artbook cover, and it would probably have lured many more people to get it.

All in all, I think the stuff for Dragon Crisis! are really the highlight for Excellent Punitto due to the artist’s wholesale embrace of his style. That said, heterochromia iridis with Akata Itsuki’s style of eyes can be rather disconcerting.

Toward the end of the book, we get to a section for Karma 13, and it’s like they ran out of room (or the illustrations aren’t actually all that significant), so they cram multiple pictures into the pages.

More so than other books, I found myself referring to the Index quite a bit, possibly due to my relative lack of knowledge about the artist. Quite useful.

Conclusion:

Is Excellent Punitto worth the 2800 yen asking price? Well it’s a fairly standard price and size for an artbook, so as always, it depends on how much you like the style of the artist, or whether you are a prior fan already. It has a number of good illustrations, and after a while, Akata Itsuki’s style really does become an acquired taste, but I think this artbook’s completeness is also its weak spot, because his earlier art is really different from his current polished style.