Hunting the Elusive

Pistil was released by Kishida Mel on 31 December 2009, as part of Comiket 77. At 16 pages long, it provides a good view of the scope of Mel’s art, surprising me somewhat by the amount of fanservice present, since most of my previous exposure to this artist was via the Atelier Rorona art, which was pretty and very tame, something to be expected from a PS3 game of course. Anyone who thinks Kishida Mel does fluffy cute strictly-SFW stuff only, due to his style (which admittedly, looks rather innocent and sweet) should note that the contents of this post may be mildly NSFW, so secure your surroundings before venturing on. [Release][PNG]

While the theme of Pistil’s cover is wintery, and there are a number of winter-related images within, not all the pictures are season-specific. One thing: Pistil is the name of the reproductive mechanisms of flowers. Strange thing to name a book, right? But actually, one notices flower patterns and flowers as a recurring theme throughout Pistil.

From the start, we get two pretty risque pictures, but nonetheless, Kishida Mel’s style comes into play here very effectively. I should note that despite the choice (or lack thereof) of clothing, these don’t actually come across as anything too ecchi, due to the nature of the characters.

Myself, I really like these two, which appeal to me due to the great use of dominant colouring. The water effects of the one on the left is, I think, rather technically demanding (while still retaining the hand-drawn look), and I quite like the more unusual approach of isolating the girl in the snowy landscape in the second.

It’s really hard to pin down singular aspects of Kishida Mel’s art which so appeals to me, but the smooth but realistic skin tones must be one of them, as is the less-conventional facial structure, and the great use of water-colour-like colours, which work together with the sketchy style to give a kind of wistful feeling to a number of his images.

In these two below, we get a return to the cutesy material that Kishida Mel excels in. It is near impossible not to fall in love with his art!

The last image in Pistil is a page spread which, unfortunately, due to the binding of the book, is not actually properly aligned. Nonetheless, it is a very impressive work, no less because Kishida Mel departs from his pastelly colourings and romantic themes to depict a neo-modern scene, replete with cyborg limbs, writhing black pipes, and epic reflections.

Pistil, as a showcase of Kishida Mel’s work, is eminently successful. We see the full spectrum of his capabilities and style within these pages, ranging from the sweet to the rather provocative, from vast landscapes to the homely, and from nostalgic romanticism to sleek modern. Once again, we find ourselves in awe of this artist, and looking forward to his next work.