I've been a fan of the Tales of series for a while now, and it's hard to believe they're celebrating their 20th anniversary. I suppose that means a plethora of new Tales of merchandise will be available by the end of 2015. The more recent games have been lacking in some areas, but overall they're pretty fun. I found myself liking the majority of character designs and artwork as well. When it was announced for pre-order, I ended up grabbing this gorgeous art book showing off Mutsumi Inomata's Tales of series designs!
I'm back with more Kingdom Hearts merchandise! Why? Because I think the Kingdom Hearts series is awesome! And because I have a huge collection of KH merch that needs to be reviewed.
This time, we'll be looking at a piece of merch that's fairly old compared to the other Kingdom Hearts merch I've reviewed thus far. Since the fifth volume of the Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days manga is coming out next month, I figured I'd do a review on the Shiro Amano Art Works book!
With C82 arriving in August, my doujinshi fever has been lit anew! So watch out, world, Poke the Merch is talking art.
Miku has enough representations to fill a classroom. Her fanmade personalities oscillate from cute to chipper to downright bitchface evil. Whatever's your type, Miku's got it. It's a part of her charm. Personally, I'm not overly fond of Miku and her high frequency output, but I adore how she's presented in Vocaloid Visual Works. After all, I love my women with a bit of rawr, and Love of War Miku is totally badass.
Collecting doujinshi can become a very dangerous hobby very fast. There are so many wonderful artists it's all too easy to buy yourself into bankruptcy. I am always doubly cautious when picking up doujinshi because of their relatively high expense-to-page ratio. Paying a dollar per page can burn through your wallet at alarming speeds, but when I come across something like Rco Wada's Toka + Toka 2 I simply can't resist. It shot me with delicious colours. Right in the heart.
I have never experienced a heart attack, nor do I ever wish to, but I like to imagine it feels like learning of the release of Huke's BLK - sudden shortness of breath, dizziness and massive heart palpitations.
Huke is an artist that's known even when he's not known. Undoubtedly you have all seen his work. After all, he managed to start an entire franchise with a picture. I mean, how is that even feasible? He must be crazy. And he is, artwise. In a totally good way.
Ah, Ar Tonelico...so full of pretty girls and elaborate environments (that you can never actually see full 3D renditions of unless you're playing the third game). I never actually managed to finish Ar Tonelico III because it was lacking in several areas, including gameplay and characterization, but I've always appreciated the artwork. In fact, I picked up the first game because I was attracted to the artwork I happened to discover online. Only later did I learn that the game was crammed with sexual innuendos and then some. But I digress. The Ar Tonelico visual book covers artwork from all three games in the series. So let's take a look at what's inside this 192-pager!
Plamoya is an import site that's both infuriating and impressive. Why? It's flexible, it's unpredictable, it's a site that's in constant flux. It's a site you have to check every few hours lest you miss an enticing deal. What do I mean? Read on!
Here we are! The third and final redjuice doujinshi I own!
Now the question remains: Don't I ever get tired to seeing redjuice pictures everywhere? Isn't it about time I broadened my horizons to include other talented artists? Shouldn't I fangasm somewhere else?
The answer is no, yes, and it depends. Let me show you why.
I've hunted Ideolo's doujinshi since I was made aware of their existence, yet somehow, they've always eluded my grubby little fingers. UNTIL NOW.
Ideolo's Touhou series is the epitome of high-contrast stylization. The colours are bright enough to punch your retina right in the cones. The heavy blacks are stark and uncompromising. Such abusive boldness can only signify greatness. Read on.
There are three types of art I really enjoy: brightly coloured, high contrast, and grungy. Collectors by artists Kunieda and Aka clearly fall into the first category. Sure, Collectors is not as vibrantly rainbow as Nao Tsukiji's Nostalgia(very little is), but it manages to cover most of the spectrum with decent aggression, and that's decent enough by my count.
Let's take a closer look.
Seems silly of me to be reviewing redjuice's EXT after I reviewed redjuice's Inside considering EXT was released first. But then again, everyone knows following sequential order is for squares, and here at Poke the Merch, we're all about circles.
After all, it doesn't matter what order I review redjuice's doujinshi. They're all gorgeous. In a sense, there's no need for me to review them at all, as "reviewing" implies there's something to critique, and redjuice Needs. No. Critique.
Statistics indicate I possess a predisposition to neglect art book reviews. This is unacceptable. Jenn is steady in nature and doesn't engage in that sort of favourism! Great art is my second love after great figures and great literature (that would technically make it my third, I guess), but I absolutely dread photographing art books. They're predilected towards horrible light refractions, and awful stiff spines.
Thankfully, the arrival of a batch of doujinshi lit a flame under my butt. So get ready, folks, here comes a well-needed artbook review!
