Hunting the Elusive

100 Masters of Bishojo Painting is a publication by BNN, published by Kouichi Yabuchi, ISBN 9784861006661, retail for 2380 yen (ex tax). It contains three original illustrations by VOFAN, toi8 and Shimeko, plus the cover by Range Murata. This has had some Japanese reviewers up in arms about the book, but the fact is, this is not an artbook, not in the normal sense of the word. Think about it like a Pixiv book, except it covers artists in the general sphere, and not just in Pixiv. That said, many of the 100 artists covered in 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting are also on Pixiv, and the book uses artworks sourced from that site too. [Review] [PNG]

This book is unusual in that it utilised an English title, in addition to the arguably secondary Japanese title of Eishi 100 Nin. The reason becomes apparent when you open the book, with everything from the preface, introduction, contents page and all artist information coming in both English and Japanese.

This is actually a very important point to note, and is also why this review must stay fairly short. 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting is aimed at not just Japanese audiences, but also a global audience.

What it is, is basically a comprehensive introduction to these Japanese artists who are involved in game, novel and anime production, for an overseas audience who may or may not be initiated into the creator side of the equation. It is as much a guidebook as a catalogue.

Thus, while more informed fans of these artists might clamour for original artworks, this is not really necessary for the primary audience the book caters to, and would probably add too much to the production costs and time. Imagine having to solicit original pieces from 100 artists, some of whom can be very busy.

Even for those of us who are fairly informed about the creators scene, this book is a handy guide, and like so many other catalogue publications, should be used to fill in gaps of knowledge and for discoveries of new artists. For example, I never really thought about the original artist of Zero no Tsukaima until I came across these pages in the book.

Format-wise, the layout is pretty clear. Each artist gets two pages (the book has 215 listed pages, fairly hefty). One of these will be a full-page illustration, while the other contains artist information like name (in kanji, romaji, English), website, email address, profile in both Japanese and English, and an artist message, also in both languages.

This means that for lazy web surfers like me, who don’t really have time to translate a lot of information I come across on the net, this book is actually very informative, and presents to us, albeit in snippets, the voices of the artists who are behind some very iconic works.

While I would hesitate to associate Hunting the Elusive with a proper publication from Japan (since it’s more like a fuzzy shadow cast across the oceans by the giant structure which is the Japanese creators industry), I think essentially, 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting does something which this blog aims to do – namely, to shed more light on the geniuses behind images we love. Of course, medium-wise, it’s a bit different.

While 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting introduces me to a lot of artists I had not come across before (again, I really prefer flipping through a book as opposed to clicking through Pixiv), there are some notable exceptions, like Naru Nanao, CHOCOLATE SHOP, and TINKLE and Kantoku. One has to wonder the at reasons for these big-name artists not being included: perhaps it was hard to get rights to republish their work, perhaps it was difficult to get in touch with them, or was there an editorial decision made regarding them?

We do get some small artists like sino, however, which is great for me. While I would have loved to have more stalking information on TINKLE, I must confess to being more intrigued by smaller scale creators.

I will also note that the publisher seems to have made a decision to only include artists residing in Japan. This is reasonable enough, but as a result, names like REI H2SO4 or dmyo will not be found here, although Nardack is an eminently capable artist, originally from Korea.

With artists whose sphere of work is quite broad, for example ImperialBoy, who I will note has more skill in landscape illustration than girl illustrations, due to the title involving bishojo, the artworks are selected to almost always have aspects of girls in them. As such, the scope of artists like ImperialBoy, or even some who are more involved in BL illustrations, are perhaps distorted somewhat if you are only going by what’s in the book.

What did I mean by stalking information? Well, at the end of 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting, we get a summary list of all 100 artists: their name, gender, birthday, bloodtype, and computer equipment used for drawing. Of course, some artists were less forthcoming in their information, but now we know, say, Shimeko’s birthday is 4 February, and has a bloodtype of O. We also know sino is a male, and ImperialBoy is 33 turning 34.

(Regarding Shimeko, I noted a NicoNico video posting in one of the Comiket Watch posts, coming to the incorrect conclusion that the artist is male. Check the comments on that particular post for an explanation regarding that assumption.)

At the beginning of the book, there is a link to a page on the BNN website, along with login credentials to access three wallpapers, the original illustrations by VOFAN, toi8 and Shimeko. Find here thumbnails of those illustrations.

The digital wallpaper editions have maximum dimensions of 1280 by 1024, but the illustrations in the book are of course interrupted by the spine.

Because this is a review, I’m not going to offer these for download, though doubtless they are already on various image boards by now.

I overwhelmingly agree with the quest that the publishers of 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting are on, but this is not the only reason I recommend readers to buy this book. Think of this like a course reader, except it is much less boring, much more colourful, and no less a journey of learning and discovery. It is a quick way to get up to speed on Japanese artists, and the fact that all the information is available in English greatly enhances access, breaking down the language barriers which are often so dominant in our sphere. I also think it would make for a pretty good read, just looking through all the English information on the 100 artists in this book.