Hunting the Elusive

9784047261068, 3333 yen, released 13 October 2009, Atelier Series Official Chronicle is a large book, running 272 pages, full colour. It has 11 chapters, each covering one instalment of the Atelier games, and each chapter includes a general illustration section then some character studies. At the back of the book, there are pages of interviews with staff and also the illustrator Kishida Mel. It also comes with a free CD titled EUSTOMIA. Featuring prominently on the front page of this book is an illustration from Atelier Rorona, and to be fair, I only really bought this book for the Kishida Mel works within, since I am not too familiar with the Atelier games franchise. [Review] [PNG]

The jacket consists of one illustration, then some thumbnails of the games represented within.

Take out the jacket and you get the real front cover of the book, which is an alternative version (with a different secondary character). Note that of the 11 games, only Atelier Rorona is done by Kishida Mel. Various other artists do the other games.

What any potential buyer has to keep in mind is that the games run as far back as 1997, so you are going to have a number of sections with really retro-like art.

That is not to say there is no good art in this book except for Kishida Mel’s. There are certainly some pretty good artists, especially as you get deeper into the book. But then there are some stinkers as well.

Additionally, since each game chapter will include character studies, depending on your point of view, that may be pages wasted. Considering it like that, the thick artbook becomes not-so-thick.

I am especially a fan of Jun Futaba (Atelier Viorate, Atelier Iris Eternal Mana 1+2, Atelier Iris Grand Fantasm), and I think Kazuyuki Yoshizumi (Mana-Khemia 1+2) is also worth having a look at.

Since Jun Futaba’s stuff starts at a bit less than halfway through the book, we could say that most of the content is actually worthy of a good look. Some of the art can be very gorgeous.

Kazuyuki Yoshizumi’s style utilises really textured hair (or bushy hair, whatever your perspective is). While I am not the biggest fan, it’s quite appealing.

Following this then, is Kishida Mel’s Atelier Rorona, which again I must say I bought the book for.

So let’s do an introduction for Kishida Mel (岸田メル). Group/website is Maigo Tsuushin (迷子通信). Has done illustrations for various novels and magazines. Of course, a major work is with Atelier Rorona, but another recent work is Kami-sama no Memo Chou (神様のメモ帳), including novel cover and illustrations, and illustration for the drama CD. His illustrations also feature on this Vocaloid PV, which he did under the name mele10.

A frustrating about this section of the book (especially noticeable since I actually went through this quite carefully) is that due to the different secondary character possible, you get very similar pictures, with just that character changed.

Stylistically, Kishida Mel’s stuff is really nice, but our eyes will get distracted by the European feel with the lush colours and flowery stuff which is actually the style of the game, not of the artist. If possible, pay close attention to the character designs.

I would personally associate Kishida Mel with Houden Eizo in terms of style (the blush, the shape and plane of the face, the almost snubby nose structure), but his characters are cuter, a little more consistent, and perhaps less breaking-out-of-the-box as Houden Eizo.

You should really check his site, especially the pictures section, if you want to get a better idea of his normal style. Understandably, Atelier Rorona has a really fantasy, which, I am surprised, actually finds in quite well with Kishida Mel’s character designs.

Since he is really the star of the book, the review should also cover the character features part of the chapter. They’re really gorgeous, and in some instances, the shading in the hair reminds me of Ueda Ryo.

There is a smaller section after this part of the book, with some extra character information and gameplay mechanics, then its off to a fairly long and text-heavy interviews section. They firstly interview the game creators, then they interview Kishida Mel himself!

Alright, at first I thought with a name like “Mel” this would be a girl, but obviously this is a guy. I didn’t bother to scan the whole interview since the text extends so close to the spine that even the review scanner could not pick up everything.

And this is the Eustoma CD packaged within the book. I haven’t looked into that yet. Likely to be all audio (don’t think there will be any digital visual content within).

3333 yen is actually quite a bit to pay for an artbook, especially for a game artbook. I think I would have gladly paid the price for 272 pages of solid Kishida Mel material, but as it is, I am comforted by the shiny cover. Still, understand that it would have been otherwise impossible to have such a good collection of colour illustrations by this artist in the one place. Additionally, two other major artists featured in this book are also worthy of a look at, and I am sure people more familiar with the Atelier series of games would find quite a lot of stuff in this book to be happy about.

BTW: the stuff shown on this page does not include everything in the review archive.

Additionally, following the very useful feedback from readers on my previous post, I have decided to retain PNG file formatting. However, if there are any geniuses out there, please make a CUDA-enabled PNG compressor.