user:nat

Heh, yeah, I used to lean more towards "surprise me" but I've had way too many bad surprises with art books. Now I pretty much search as much as possible for samples of the artists' work, possible reviews, yahoo auctions, and anything else to give me an idea of it before I buy.

I scanned one! Someone else can finish it off ;3

Yup, A4 in size.

Yeah, that's the difference it makes in being able to handpick submissions instead of just accept everything (like on the site ^^;)

Not all artists are background artists as well...

Preach on. I was so excited when I'd first heard about Dendrobium, and then later disappointed when I found out most of the illustrations would be a lot more than a little ecchi. So most of the work I have from him is part of 'various artists' collections. Maybe next time :D

It does! Amazon JP has betrayed me! XD

Oh yeah, that definitely would make a difference. I guess if the artists submitted their work too small, the best they could do in the last one was the practically postage size printing for some pictures.

Let's see... Otaku.com has it, but with some price mark-up. Mangaoh has it, and I think they only do EMS shipping internationally.

Thanks a lot! I'm just glad there are a lot more people interested in art books than I originally thought :3

Yeah, I never get why that happens either, though they usually come back. It says out of stock, but you can add it to your cart (at the moment). I did that with the Baccano! Illustrations, and it ended up coming like 5 days later, so it's not too bad.

If you feel you don't have much to spend this month, I'd skip on the art books. They will still be here next month. Even if Amazon doesn't re-stock there are tons of other stores that carry it and it'll even show up second-hand eventually. That said, I do think it's the best multiple artist collection I've seen, and you can waste a whole 11-pages on Aoi Kimizuka and still enjoy it!

But there are a lot of art books coming out this month, and I don't want to jump the gun on recommending this over the others I haven't even seen yet ^^;

Pixiv Girls Collection 2010 is out now. Suprisingly, if you'd pre-ordered it on Amazon JP it was half price, ￥1050, though now it's back up to ￥2100.

This book could definitely use more Yui, but tsundere face + bikini = win!

Unless you're in Japan, you can't buy directly from Toranoana, so you won't really need anything more than the item page to link a deputy shop to buy it for you XD

If it's that you're unable to navigate it because of the language barrier, try what JJ said and use an online translator. It's pretty straightforward, and you can always look at the actual link path when you hover over a link as it contains words in English.

Woops, fixed that. Thanks!

And yet, I have it. Guess when you want things, you have to put in a little effort and work around the roadblocks. And there's no point in whining if it's not something you want!

It's because doujinshi exist in a legal grey zone. Even in the case of Vocaloid, these artists are drawing designs and concepts that are already owned by a company (Crypton Media). Fair enough to have it at conventions, and doujin shops where the fan culture already understands the borrowed relationship. Ship it abroad without licensing rights, and then tell everyone hey, it's okay to use these characters to make money for yourself and that's a whole other situation. Crypton could even lose their right to protect their brand if they don't constantly act to defend infringement overseas.

Anyway, Ebay, deputy shops, and Mandarake because they only sell used :)

Houden Eizo is C; and I don't know who did the character portraits for the BlazBlue Materials Collection which is where B is from.

Agreed. Wish they'd included less filler and more Fault! I did think there was more promo art out there for it, but maybe I'm wrong...

With releases like this, Cuteg is definitely fast becoming one of my favorite artists ^^

Yet another reason I use EMS = need for speed! XD

It's true! There really are a lot of impressive independent publications :3

Ah, I saw that one then, but like you said the prices on the C77 goods set were much higher than they were for the two doujinshi... Guess Mreun really got lucky! XD

I skipped 24, since 23 turned out to be a sketch book as well and I checked that out before bidding. On the bright side, most artists are better about mentioning if their doujins are in color before hand :D

You have to use shops like Toranoana, Melonbooks, and Mandarake. And out of those, only Mandarake ships directly to you, for the others you have to use a deputy shop. I have an introduction to all of those sorts of things here on my site.

Good deal, especially in mint condition. Even better considering you can't even buy it new anymore!