As many of you know, this was a big month for Shouji Sato fans. In addition to a new chapter in this month's issue of Dragon Age, Triage X was featured on the cover and got a few color pages at the front promoting Volume 5 and the art book, both of which were released on the 9th along with this issue. I'll include those with this month's raws. There are actually two shorter chapters this month instead of one normal one. One is a side chapter which I believe is technically Chapter 28, and the other is an extra case.
The coolest thing about this issue is the companion to Shouji Sato's new art book, Lightning Pop, called "Lightning Pop β" (for those of you who care, the β is the Greek letter Beta, not to be confused with the German ß [Eszett]). This companion booklet provides sketches of a lot of illustrations, both old and new, from the art book. I had planned on scanning this, but it ended being much longer than I anticipated (around 100 pages). So I don't know what I'm going to do with it now. I most likely won't scan the entire thing.
I don't feel like starting a new post, so I'll just cover the art book here.
I'm happy with how it turned out. Just as I expected, there aren't many new illustrations, but many of the old illustrations are rare and may be new to a lot of people. About half of the book is dedicated to HOTD, including illustrations from the volumes, Dragon Age, other art books, and various other places they've appeared over the years. Triage X and Fire Fire Fire have significantly smaller sections, and then there is a miscellaneous section at the end which includes Futari Bocchi Densetsu and various illustrations he's done outside of his series. Overall, it's a very nice collection.
I'm not completely satisfied with how the sizes of some of the illustrations were dealt with. A lot of illustrations got their own page or were combined with others in single pages or spreads, but others were reduced in size and bunched together on some pages. I guess it's better that they did it this way, though, rather than cut some of them out completely. Other than that, I think it looks great. If we scan this, it will probably take quite a long time, so I would recommend buying your own copy if you are able and you want to see it. It's definitely worth the import cost.
Since I got this issue late, I won't be able to get started on scanning Triage X and Maken-Ki! right away. I'll do my best to get them up within the next couple of days, but I can't promise anything. See you soon.
Do you know how much the art book cost?
ReplyDeleteWith shipping, it's about $70 on Amazon Japan. You can probably find it a bit cheaper somewhere else. It's only about $30 without shipping.
DeleteI ordered the artbook so, is the artbook that's included with the newest Dragon Age basically the same or is worth buying as well?
ReplyDeleteThe companion booklet in this month's DA is mostly just early sketches of some of the illustrations in the art book. There are a few unique things, such as concept sketches of the HOTD volume covers. By itself, it's not worth $50, but it's a good deal if you want the magazine also.
DeleteUm is There any Hotd chapters comming out? Or are they still on a hiatus.
ReplyDeleteNo, the hiatus will continue until at least October. I guess I forgot to say that in the post.
DeleteHOTD returning was mentioned in this issue of MDA?
DeleteThanks for the news btw.
No, it was not mentioned, which means it will not return next month.
DeleteThanks Turambar I won't order the newest D.A. if the art is pretty much the same. I can order it for 10 dollars but the artbook is already costing me 50 shipped might as well save a buck.
ReplyDeleteI think HOTD will return next year on May. That would make sense. And proably Hiatus would be over by than.
ReplyDeletehttp://animeblog.ru/view-48580.html
ReplyDeleteArtbooks / Highschool of the Dead - Lightning Pop
http://rapidgator.net/file/35126816