Hunting the Elusive

shooting star is a Black Rock Shooter fanbook by Hato Rami (Hato no Tamago), released as part of her Comic Market 77 bundle. Actually to classify this as a book would be pretty misleading, since it’s more like a leaflet, two pieces of paper, folded, one nested in the other, making for a total of 8 pages. That said, it is full colour, and the centre spread is pretty outstanding. Now, due to recent developments thanks to GSC and that ilk, I am now unsure of my position regarding Black Rock Shooter. Aesthetically, I am still very curious as to how artists interpret that work, but the sheer amount of commercial overkill of that particular franchise means huke’s stuff is probably not as elusive as it once was, so in terms of coverage here, that might be going the way of Kantoku. [Release][PNG]

OK, there’s probably a bit of elitism involved in that particular decision, but thinking practically, if the point of this blog is to uncover the elusive, it makes little sense to cover something which is so common in the “market”. Yes, I know, dumping popular artists from coverage isn’t going to help hit rates any, but that’s why this place is non-commercial land, isn’t it? In the end, I want this place to challenge and inform aesthetics, not stagnate on over-saturated stuff.

That said, I’m still going to be buying some figures (though probably not any more Black Rock Shooter ones) and doujins and all that for personal consumption. Anyways, back to shooting star.

Here are the cover pages. Note the filler pattern, which I really think is pretty unnecessary in such a thin work. Could have put another artwork there, but then that’s just me as a consumer talking.

Inside the book, we get a complete version of the illustration on the cover, plus more filler.

The centrefold spread can be said to be the highlight of shooting star, a masterful depiction of both Black Rock Shooter and Miku normal from Love is War (which, curiously, I realise, I haven’t seen much of, this crossover, that is). Hato Rami has chosen to use the ultra-texture look adopted from huke in the entire composition, as well as utilise the signature checkerboard pattern as part of the texture in the lower half of the picture.

The result is a very outstanding and symmetrical work, masterfully transforming Hato Rami’s style into a darker and grittier but no less cute version of itself.

Note these last two pages are a continuous picture but since they weren’t actually bound, I did not stitch. I think there are no overlaps for effective stitching anyway.

In regards to the quality of shooting star, the printing quality, as with most of Hato Rami’s stuff, is pristine. The paper stock, however, introduced a lot of texture into the scans, which I have partially removed with processing, but retained some so as not to overdo it.

The C77 set for Hato Rami came with the Walking of the Planet book, a calendar, and some post cards, which I may cover in later posts. Walking of the Planet, while less illustration-centric, is I think an interesting read if you are patient enough to read the text.

By the way, I’m going to Hong Kong tomorrow night for around a week. I haven’t pre-scanned any posts, so for the duration of my holiday, this blog won’t get any release or review posts. However, there is the possibility it’ll just become my travelogue (I’ll be bringing my UMPC, but it depends on what Internet connection I find there). So please pardon me if the next few posts become somewhat more personal/spontaneous.

BTW, if anyone wants to meet up in HK (I’ll be missing CWHK, unfortunately), feel free to drop a comment, we’ll see if we can line anything up.