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Artbook Review: CLAMP’s Code Geass “Mutuality”

December 27th, 2008 | Category: Merchandise,Reviews

ava Code Geass has a number of artbooks and other magazines based on the anime, but "MUTUALITY: CLAMP Works in Code Geass” has been the artbook many people were waiting for, as it contains the art created by the famous CLAMP for the franchise. According to rumours in the aether, CLAMP did the original character designs. They also did a number of colour pieces for the endings of both series, and additional illustrations for most noticeably the covers of several Newtype Japan magazines. [Download: Review pictures] [JPG]

MUTUALITY: CLAMP Works in Code Geass, retails for 1900 yen, with ISBN 9784048542869. It was released on 5 December 2008, by Kadokawa. 105 pages of contents, with coloured contents ending at page 52. The rest are monochrome character designs (giving an insight into things like early prototypes of Zero), short stories and essays.

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While many would be quite disappointed at the “miserly” 50 or so pages of actual “artbook material”, we would do well to remember that CLAMP did not draw a lot of pictures for Code Geass, and this book pretty much collects all the available material within one volume.

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As per usual with CLAMP, the motifs of wings and swords and elegant dresses are given great priority.

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The artbook is divided into various Chapters for the art. Chapter 1 is “contrariety”, Chapter 2 is “wing of defiance”, Chapter 3 is “glance of entreaty”, Chapter 4 is “confusion or accordance”, Chapter 5 is “unattainable dream”, Chapter 6 is “land of one’s end”, and Chapter 7 is “Outside”.

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This Chapter division seems to me quite arbitrary or unnecessary. Some chapters, for example, contain only one or two illustrations.

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The names of the chapters, however, do make things kind of interesting, because they refer to the themes of the pictures. “unattainable dream”, for example, are ideal situations for the characters in a kind of paradise.

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There are also quite a number of page spreads present in this artbook, as you can see.

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The character profiles for Lelouch and Suzaku are written in English, and pretty well-written (not Engrish).

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“Mutuality” is a fairly popular artbook. I think when I checked Kinokuniya after I returned from Japan (having bought the book at Gamers in Akihabara), they had a stack of around 6 or 7 in stock, then when I went back a few days later, they had run out.

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Chapter 7 “outside” seems to be more of a miscellaneous section. It only contains one illustration (of CC), and then coloured prototypes of the Lelouch and Suzaku characters before the designs were finalised. The early Lelouch seemed to be much more aristocratic than the final form.

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There is one more “Chapter” after Chapter 7. Chapter 8 is “short story”, which is exactly what the name suggests. It contains two illustrations which I think were drawn for the book.

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Following the short story, the majority of the volume is made up of “Character First Draft”, which are line drawings of the characters. Many can be found here which were not present in the final product, or were redesigned.

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Following this section, there is a “Backstage Dialogue” between Goro Taniguchi and Mokona. It’s more like an interview, I think with Mokona being the interviewer (as an embodiment of CLAMP), and Goro Taniguchi is of course the director and plot author of Code Geass. All in Japanese, however.

All-in-all, I am very happy with this artbook. Although for 1900 yen, it seems a bit steep for just 50 pages of full colour illustrations, I think I am already used to it with all the doujin artbooks I buy. The quality of the artwork (along with CLAMP’s great style) makes this book a worthy buy. In fact, when the covers for the Newtype magazines came out, I wanted to buy the magazines just for the cover. I am glad I waited though. Highly recommended for fans of CLAMP, as well as Code Geass aficionados.

10 comments

10 Comments so far

  1. yuffie-chan December 28th, 2008 2:21 am

    weeeeeeeeeeeeee *-* i was crazy to download this artbook i didn’t know there were so many pages like that /o/ thanks icie ToT

  2. tundra_no_caps December 29th, 2008 10:28 pm

    The limbs, while aimed to be graceful and fair, end up being too, well, I forgot the word in English, but like the poles you house buildings in flooded countries on.
    Amusing to see such legs, and then you think that on real people they’d be suffering from severe malnutrition.

    They lack depth, not only the limbs, but the bodies and pictures as a whole. The colour scheme and shadowing result in what I must describe as “Flat” pictures.

  3. icie December 29th, 2008 11:19 pm

    Stilt-like? :)

    You are right, of course, in that CLAMP’s recent style has seen the limbs elongated somewhat beyond normal. This is most ridiculously depicted in XXXholic.

    I guess for some of us who have been following their work, the progression has been such that we have accepted that. Realistic proportions have never been a strong part of this sort of illustration, and while the (NSFW) epic drawing fail immediately comes to mind, style is somewhat different to bloopers.

    The most disconcerting part of this elongated style has to do with Lelouch’s fingers, IMO.

    In regards to depth, I submit that these pictures are meant to be stylised to appear painting-like, with a hand-drawn look. I think it would probably have been a fairly simple task to use CG and get depth in there, but the choice was probably intentional.

    Certainly, when you look at these pictures, you will not feel any sort of attachment with the characters depicted. They should be regarded in the same way most people regard people depicted in stain glass windows.

    All these criticism being valid, I must say, strangely, they do not detract from my aesthetic enjoyment of the contents of these book.

  4. tundra_no_caps December 30th, 2008 10:40 pm

    Stilt-like, yes :)

    Err, look at pictures from the Renessaince, hand-drawn, and with a lot of depth. It’s evading the issue pinning it on it, or, if they truly can’t add depth without the aid of CG, then the state of modern artists is dire indeed.
    Ah, I see that is not what you intended, but my comment still stands.

    Also, I thought art was to form an attachment of some sort, even if to the art itself.

    And in the end, I agree with your parting comment, if you enjoy the content of the book, then all is swell. For you ;) I just voice my dislike.

    Oh, I do own 3 volumes of XXXholic, but there I viewed it as caricature-esque. A cliche that makes a reference in our minds to the Victorian Era. I just don’t enjoy it as art in and of itself.

    Well, I miss the Chobits days, not only the subject material, but the style.

  5. tundra_no_caps December 30th, 2008 10:44 pm

    Ah, and keep uploading whatever you enjoy, we’ll find what we like :D

    But if you don’t enjoy, then we don’t find! :D

  6. icie December 30th, 2008 11:51 pm

    I don’t take these comments personally at all, so feel free to criticise the art as you see fit.

    These aesthetic matters are so subjective, it’d be pretty pointless being the champion of any particular artist or style.

    That said, if there’s anyone out there who doesn’t like moe/good looking 2D illustrations of girls, then this is the wrong place for you. :P

  7. MD December 31st, 2008 1:47 am

    Just got this book today, it’s so awesome! XD

  8. Aurelia January 3rd, 2009 3:14 am

    The chapter names and themes might make more sense than you think (though I’ll admit that the connection between some of them is tenuous at best). Also, a bit spoiler-y.
    Chapter 1 – Contrariety: It’s all about the opposites. Black/white, twin brothers, witch/warlock
    Chapter 2 – Wing of Defiance: The three of them are part of the rebellion, and they all have the black wings.
    Chapter 3 – Glance of Entreaty: I’ve got no idea how this relates to the chapter name except that they seem to be the characters with the white wings, and they have approximately the same expression on their faces.
    Chapter 4 – Confusion or Accordance: I think the point was that these characters question why they fight for their side and some of them end up switching sides.
    Chapter 5 – Unattainable Dream: This one was pretty easy. They feature three of the characters who had prominent deaths and therefore didn’t live to see their dreams fulfilled.
    Chapter 6 – Land of One’s End: They all take place in that apocalyptic-looking setting.
    Chapter 7 – Outside: …Yeah, the random illustrations left over.

    Anyways, I also got Tiv’s “Annyong: We Are Peanuts” vol. 1 for Christmas, and I’ll try to scan a couple pictures from that later.

  9. icie January 3rd, 2009 3:20 am

    RE: Tiv’s book. Yes, yes, YES! Please post a link when you have scans!

  10. Joey April 5th, 2010 8:54 am

    Thank you for the scans and review / general overview of the book. But could you please enlighten me as to where you found an english copy of the artbook?
    All I could track down were chinese & japanese copies.
    Thank you.

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