Hunting the Elusive

I personally thought 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting was a great book. I didn’t know it was possible to, in such a short period of time, find another book which could very well rival, if not surpass it. This book is Girls Graph (Girl, Illustrated), a title I first became aware of when redjuice referred to it on Twitter, since his art is on the cover. When I ordered it from the Hakuryo bookstore (which is a Japan-only bookstore, since it wasn’t on Amazon at that time), I thought it was just going to be (A) fairly thin (B) dull and full of text I couldn’t read. I am happy to announce that that is not the case. In fact, it was so not the case that I bumped another review for this one. This 2800 yen book is formatted like 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting, except it contains 82 artists (that I counted). ISBN: 9784756240088, 208 pages, published by PIE International/PIE BOOKS. [Review][PNG]

The reason why one cannot review Girls Graph (Girl, Illustrated is its title in English, and is the title which English language book stores will use) without reference to 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting is because both cater to the international English-speaking audience.

However, I suspect it is less well-known (a situation I hope to address with this review) because not many people really knew what was in it. They might have possibly thought, like I did, that it was a generic drawing tutorial, I dunno.

Once one begins to flip through the book, it becomes apparent that the English is not there for decoration. It means business, and business it dishes out. Everything is translated, although of course it’s Japanese first, English later. The preface, by Tsuyoshi Ito, a manga professor, states that Girls Graph (Girl, Illustrated) was “produced for people involved in design in Japan and overseas”, leading me to think that its purported audience is aimed a bit higher than 100 Masters.

In other words, it acts as a directory or reference of sort, so designers who want characters done for them can browse through and find an artist or style they like. This is reinforced by the design-illustration tension mentioned in the preface, as well as the three case studies presented by this book.

The three case studies are of the character Chita Milk from Aichi Prefecture’s Chita Peninsula, the Tetsudo Musume (Alice Kuji and Mana Kamaishi) from Sanriku Railways in Iwate Prefecture, and Ugomachi’s Ugobon and other moe projects such as the Stick Poster in Ugomachi campaign. And yes, they’re both mid-sized reads available in both Japanese and English.

After the initial case study section (titled “Girls Be Ambitious!” which I recall is similar to a section in a magazine I read before, though I can’t remember specifically), we get to the main body of work. Each entry is two pages, with one full-page illustration, and then 2/3rd of a page taken up by smaller illustrations, and artist information, including name, web address, year of birth, gender, address, email address, and software or art materials the artist utilises. It also contains a comment from the artist, as well as, interestingly, a look at the source of inspiration (which 100 Masters did not specifically cover).

Of course, these fields are optional, so some artists do not bother to put anything in them. However, when they do, it makes for very good read, even when they are short. What an artist writes says a lot about them, and could well prompt a would-be illustrator to look for inspiration in places where they had not thought to look before.

It is also a very fun way to discover new things which may be very cool. For example, this artist, Sabamu, lists a German musical instrument encyclopaedia as a source of information, and has also travelled to France, Germany, Austria, Italy, Turkey and Peru.

Or Sayori (NEKO WORKS, an artist Merun introduced me to), who apparently collects photos of confectionary and accessories as her “only” source of inspiration. You can really tell, from the amount of delicious food in her pictures.

In some instances, the artists states things as their inspiration which are really at the top of their mind at the moment. Some, for example, said Summer Wars or Bakemonogatari, which is fair enough, but perhaps not as deep or as probing as the question entailed. However, most artist comments are also very useful, with many of them analysing their own styles and what they hope to do in the future.

I should note that the printing of this book is pretty amazing for a mass production. One doesn’t really notice the printing without looking at 600dpi scans of the pages, but I realised that while there was noise and grain, there was no screening effect. You might notice the pictures retain a bit of noise, but that’s my own effort in curbing processing so as not to wipe out the details.

I will note that the artists covered by Girls Graph (Girl, Illustrated) differs quite a bit from 100 Masters of Bishojo Painting. While some artists are covered in both, I get the feeling (totally subjectively speaking) that Girls Graph looks at artists who are a bit less mainstream (though both books cover manga, anime and video game illustrators). Personally, I found more artists in here where I thought “that’s nice, I need to check this one out” than I did in 100 Masters.

Of course, unlike 100 Masters, Girls Graph (Girls, Illustrated) does not provide a stalking list for the artists. I heard a few people who really thought that list at the end of 100 Masters was the most awesomest thing ever.

And of course we get redjuice near the end of the book. We’ve all seen the full-page illustration before (cover art), and in fact I think he made a making-of video for that one too.

All in all, this is a bloody great book for us gaijins. I tip my hat to the staff (coordinator/editor: Katsuyuki Yasui; editor: Kaori Saito; Translators: Pamela Miki and Marian Kinoshita) for their dedication to this project to further increase international understanding and knowledge of Japanese illustrators, as well as the quest to more closely entwine design and character illustrations. I definitely recommend purchase.