Promo!

Atelier Series Official Chronicle

November 1st, 2009, 8:54PM by nat | 11 comments

Atelier Rorona

Atelier Series Official Chronicle collects loads of art work from the different Atelier Series along with Mana Khemia 1 & 2 and puts them all in one place for your viewing pleasure. The book goes in order from oldest to newest Atelier Series, with Mana Khemia in the mix.

Atelier Series Atelier Under Cover

Atelier Inside Page Atelier Conents Page

The book is 272 pages long, and A4 in size, huge by art book standards. It's paper back and has a slip cover that when removed, shows a variation of the cover art work featuring Atelier Rorona's Rororina and Hom.

Atelier Marie Atelier Marie

Atelier Marie Atelier Marie

The first section features Atelier Marie, the oldest of the bunch. Each section consists of a few pages of art work promotional art work, then art work from the game scenes and finally profile pages of the the characters. Atelier Marie is illustrated by Kohime Ohse.

Atelier Elie Atelier Elie

Atelier Elie Aterlier Elie

Atelier Elie has a very similar look to Atelier Marie, but I suppose that's the point. There are 22 pages in this section, with 5 character profile pages. In this section like the first, the non-main characters have half page profiles.

Atelier Lilie Atelier Lilie

Atelier Game Scenes Atelier Lilie Profile

Little by little the art work evolves :D Atelier Lilie is next, which came out on the Playstation 2 in 2001. As with Atelier Elie, the artist is still Isaemon Yamagata. This section is also 22 pages long.

Atelier Judie Atelier Judie Wedding Dress

Atelier Judie Game Scenes Atelier Judie Profile

The next part is Atelier Judie, illustrated by Jun Futaba, which diverges significantly from the previous styles. There are a lot of tiled images for this 20 page section, although the art work is nicer than the previous ones, with more CG, soft shaded characters. I've seen it written Atelier Judith as well, but in this book it looks like they've gone with Judie.

Atelier Viorate Atelier Viorate

Atelier ViorateAtelier ViorateAtelier Viorate Profile

Next up is Atelier Viorate (which is way better than Violate...) who is also illustrated by Jun Futaba, the creator for Atelier Judie. Atelier Viorate came out in 2003 and was also on the PS2. The first illustration in the section is actually an original one, drawn exclusively for this book. This section is also 20 pages long, and seems to have more game scenes than the other sections, but they're also better presented with a larger image on every page next to a couple of smaller ones.

Atelier Iris

Atelier Iris is next, speficially the Eternal Mana game that came out in 2003. The new illustration by Jun Futaba in this section is of Ryta with angelic wings.

Atelier IrisAtelier IrisAtelier Iris

Atelier Iris Atelier Iris Profile Page

This section is also where we finally start seeing some full body images for the non-main characters on their profile pages along with pictures of the magic spirits. In this 20 page section, 7 of the illustrations are full page promotional images, and there aren't any "in-game" scenes shown.

Atelier Iris Eternal ManaEternal ManaEternal Mana

Eternal Mana Fee Profile Page

The second Atelier Iris game, Eternal Mana 2 is next. There isn't an original illustration for this section, but it does include more promotional art work. None of the art work from in game scenes were include in this section either, but I think it's because Jun Futaba didn't illustrate those scenes in this or the last game.

Atelier Iris Grand FantasmGrand FantasmAtelier Iris Grand Fantasm

Atelier Iris Wedding DressAtelier IrisGrand Fantasm Profile Page

The final Alterier Iris game featured is Grand Fantasm which is covered in 16 pages. Included are some of the illustrations from promotional items like tele-cards.

Mana KhemiaMana KhemiaMana Khemia

Mana KhemiaMana KhemiaMana Khemia Profile Page

Both Mana Khemia games are also included in the book, and both are illustrated by Kazuyuki Yoshizumi. I really love the art work for these two, makes me want to play the game :3 Mana Khemia is a sort of spiritual successor to the Atelier Iris series, though not directly an Atelier series game. There are also phone card illustrations in the first game section.

Mana Khemia 2Mana Khemia 2Mana Khemia 2

Mana Khemia 2Mana Khemia 2Mana Khemia 2

Mana Khemia is covered in 18 pages and Mana Khemia 2 is covered in 24 pages. The second game has a lot more pages dedicated to the character profile pages, which the first game section has a lot more promotional art work featured. And it's a good thing too, the character designs in both games are gorgeous.

Atelier Rorona Atelier Rorona

Atelier Rorona Atelier Rorona

The final game featured is the newest, Atelier Rorona. It's slated to come out next year in English and came out this past June in Japan. The character designs this time are by Kishida Mel, whose art work has been appearing with increasing frequency in magazines and compilation books. He's also done a book exclusive illustration, featuring Rororina and Cuderia, as well as the new cover art for Atelier Series Official Chronicle.

Alterier Rorona Game ScenesLionela HeinzHom

There are five pages of promo art, and 14 pages of illustrations from in the game. The in-game illustrations are especially nice too, with this artist. There are also 12 pages of character profiles, all with full body images. This is the longest section in the book, with a total of 33 pages.

Pamela Ibis Interviews

Kishida Mel Interviews

The book ends with interviews, a few pages on the changes of the re-appearing characters (like Pamela Ibis) from game to game and some release information about the game. Though not every artist is interviewed, some of the game creators are, and Kishida Mel gets a 6-page interview on his own. He's only 26 years old and quite established already.

Eustoma

The final goody in this chronicle is a CD titled Eustoma. The CD is all music (I think there were 6 tracks) and you can listen to some of it on the Enterbrain official website. This giant sized book covers just about everything a fan could want, all in one place. Though it's ¥ 3,500, it really condenses the previous game guide books into what I was interested in: the art work ^^

Promo!

Comments

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Avatar for Zeb
Zeb

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Ooohh I love Kohime Ohse's artwork so am curious to see how much of her work is re-printed here as well as her artbooks Astrolabe and Kaleido Scope.

Regardless, pretty pretty! Wants eet! Thanks for the review :)

Avatar for nat
nat

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Aww, wish I could tell you but you always manage to mention books I don't have >_< I could photograph the rest of that section and put it on ZT if you want to compare though, since you have those :3

Love your layout change btw, that's really slick!

Avatar for Zeb
Zeb

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Sounds like a plan! Would be good reference for both our reviews... well, er, YOUR review, since I haven't reviewed those two yet. XD

And thanks! Still needs a few tweaks but I really like!

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Tsuki88

14 years, 4 months ago

 

I can't believe you didn't comment on the paper quality!

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nat

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Uh... well, seeing that it's a 272 page book, the pages are not as thick and as the usual art book, because then this book would weigh 10 kilos :P So yeah, they are a little thin, but not like magazine thin or anything.

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Anonymous

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Have you checked out the CD at all? it looks sealed XD

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nat

14 years, 4 months ago

 

I have! One of my powers is re-assemble! The CD casing is glued at two places on the last page, so I took it off, placed a plastic clear file between that and the last page so they wouldn't stick together and unwrapped the CD! :D Inside, there's a small booklet, and it does have cover art, but no one from the games (I don't think so anyway...).

Avatar for Kevin
Kevin

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Hello Nat,

Been kinda busy. When I finally do show up and check on things at Zerotype, you went at set up a very nice review site for artbooks and doujinshi. COOL! You picked up a lot of stuff I picked up already and then some (thought I was done with C76 but looks like I missed some)!

About your question on the Jingko book, I'd just pick up the commercial release. The doujinshi is really only that one cover image. The color stuff is only about 20 pages out of 120 and it's really only rough color concepts. The rest of the book is b/w line art. The commercial release includes the cover image so you wouldn't miss anything.

FYI, Nitrochiral released a couple of doujinshi. But I'm not interested since that artists does the "guy" art. I'll pass on that. :)

Avatar for nat
nat

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Thanks for the info! I was wanting to know mostly because of that "guy" art collection by Nitro-Chiral ;D. I wanted to make the deputy order worth it with a few extras, since I couldn't buy the Jingko book off Amazon due to its adult rating. Will go with the commercial one :3

Avatar for AT1987
AT1987

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Wow ! I really want it. The Rorona section in the book is better than Rorona visual book I got when I bought the game.

Maybe I should ask my local Kinokuniya store to import it for me.

Thank you for your review.

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Kiwi-miki

13 years, 11 months ago

 

I would like to know about this artbook..@A@...My mom's artwork might be in this book ;AA; may i know where you bough it from ?T^T

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