Here's the first illustration book from the popular shoujo manga series, Vampire Knight by Hino Matsuri.
For you who don't know this series, here's a little summary: It's about a girl (Yuuki) who studies in a school that has Day and Night Class. The Night Class students, unknown to most of the Day students are vampires! And Yuuki and her friend Zero must protect the Night Class' secret as the guardian of the school. At least at first.
This book contains 111 full color illustrations across 94 pages from the covers of the manga series and illustrations from various media, like light novel and DVD Box. You can know which illustration is from which at the index page (if you can read Japanese).
The art style is very shoujo-ish, the colors are vivid, and the details are gorgeous. The main trio, Yuuki, Zero, and Kaname make up most of the illustrations in the book as one might expect. But Hino-sensei also lets some side characters in, which is great to me because the side characters are also very likeable.
The book consists of three main galleries, Vampire Days, Vampire Nights, and Vampire Party. I don't think there are any meaning to those titles, as Vampire Days doesn't include any day class student (except for Yori), and Vampire Party section have something that doesn't quite feel like party (character in... usual school uniform).
Then there is the Hino Matsuri Special Selection Section. From what I can discern, that is the authors' favorite illustrations. And there's also the cover illustration making, step-by-step. I'm amazed at how the author made the cover from sketch and use copics to color it. Cool!
In the end, there is index that lets you know which illustration is from which and the message from the author.
I was hoping to see some new illustrations, but there are really no new illustrations except the book cover (which also comes as a bonus poster). There are only 4, 5 pictures I haven't seen at all (because I don't read the manga magazine).
In all, the print quality is really good and for the value of less than $20 (1800 JPY+tax), it's really worth it. It appears that this artbook is out of print in many sites (YesAsia, cdjapan, ANIMAXIS, HMV Japan). Good luck finding it.
I'd recommend it for shoujo art style fans. A must-have for Vampire Knight fans.
You can find this book here:
New: Amazon UK | DE | JP | Animebooks
Used: Benippon
Book details:
Format: soft cover
Language: Japanese
Publisher:白泉社 (Hakusensha)
ISBN-13: 978-4-592-73259-4
ISBN-10: 4-592-73259-6
Release Date: 2010-07-05
Dimension: 11.8 x 9.1 x 0.6 inches
Price:￥ 1,800 + tax
Samples
