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Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~

December 28th, 2009, 11:11PM by nat | 11 comments

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 52

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ (あしあと~カントクアートワークス~) turns out to be as colorful and vibrant as expected, filled with 144-pages of beautiful girls ranging from original creations to copyright characters. The book is B5 sized, so it's smaller than most art books, but about the size of the average doujinshi.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 1Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 2Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 3

The cover illustration is new for the art book, and the same illustration reappears towards the back of the book as a two-page spread without the title text. In total there are six new illustrations drawn exclusively for Ashiato. All three of the images above are new.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 4Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 5Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 6

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 7Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 8Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 9

There is no index, or table of contents but the images do have notes next to them to indicate where they were originally published. They're not in chronological order either, so you get a mix of newer art work next to older ones, so there are some style changes from page to page. The images above were for the most part originally published in Magicu and E☆2 (Etsu) magazines.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 10Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 11Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 12

Chara☆Mel Magazine is another that regularly features Kantoku's illustrations, and those are included in here as well up through volume 10. It's sad to think just how many magazines you'd have to buy just to keep up with one artist ^^;

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 18 Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 16

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 36 Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 19

Kantoku has also done a fair amount of merchandise art work for some of the popular anime and doujinshi stores in Tokyo like Toranoana, Melonbooks, and K-Books. I'd actually seen most of the illustrations in other books I'd purchased, but it's always nice to have a collection in one place. The last illustration above was drawn for Megami Creators volume 11 and may show up again in the Girl's Avenue Illustrations art book out in February next year.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 17

Aside from two monochrome illustrations for K-BOOKS and one sketch page in the back, the entire art book is in color.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 13Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 15Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 14

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 33Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 26Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 27

Several of the copyright art works featured are from the game Ameserasa (アメサラサ~雨と) and other CUFFS related works. But there are also some illustrations done by Kantoku as guest arts for other series like Fate/Stay Night, Kimikiss, and To Heart.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 21Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 22Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 23

From about page 50 through 66 are some illustrations that really feel like filler content. They're from something that ran in Dragon Magazine, but since I'm not really interested, I'm not going to look it up ^^; I'd consider these some of the only generic-looking illustrations in here.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 24Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 25Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 28

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 30Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 31Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 32

Back to the colorful stuff. Surprisingly, there weren't a huge amount of illustrations from Kantoku's doujin publications in here. So even if you've purchased his doujinshi, you won't feel like you're getting a lot of repeat illustrations.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 34 Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 35

The Hatsune Miku illustration above right appeared in a Vocaloid illustration collection along side art work by H2SO4, Yasu, Rokuwata Tomoe, Hinayuki Usa, Kagome and a lot more. I'll have to remember to review it sometime...

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 37Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 38Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 40

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 42Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 43Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 44

Several of the illustrations above appeared in Kantoku's Check x Check (チェック×チェック) series of doujinshi. But as I mentioned before, it's not a lot when considering the overall number of illustrations.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 45Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 46Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 47

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 48Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 49Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 50

And for better or for worse, some of the illustrations that appeared in Kantoku's 5th Year Memorial (reviewed here) re-appear in this art book. Most noticeably, the cover illustrations from 5th Year, the original Kurumi illustration in wet clothing, the illustrations on the fan and several of the home page illustrations. I would say most of the art work from pages 116 through 135 appeared in the 5th Year Memorial and on Kantoku's website at some point, though they were for the most part printed at smaller sizes previously.

Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 51 Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ - 53

The illustration on the top left was used as the cover for a limited version of this art book sold only at Animate and Gamers stores in Tokyo. The page count is the same in both, so it may be safe to assume the covers are the only difference. Ashiato ~Kantoku Art Works~ retails for ¥2,940, and considering the assortment of illustrations in this book, it's a great deal that would satisfy anyone's Kantoku cravings for the year :3

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Avatar for Merun
Merun

14 years, 2 months ago

 

This seems really exciting _ especially as I didn't get much from him until this year.

I did settle for the normal version in the end. Enough damage with C77 as it is.

Amerserasa (アメサラサ~雨と) <-- the most used romanization is Amesarasa ( well, I can't tell if it's correct then lol )

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nat

14 years, 2 months ago

 

Nah, that was just a typo, my fingers always want to add extra letters into everything XD

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Merun

14 years, 2 months ago

 

Lol, mine is of the lazy type, they skip words.

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anonymousobject

14 years, 2 months ago

 

Oh, sounds like it is indeed worth it. Putting it on my ever-increasing wish list ^^

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Smithy

14 years, 2 months ago

 

Oh! Thanks for the review, now I know the book is defnitely worth it as I chose to buy this instead of spending on C77 goods.

Amazon shipped my copy out to me so hope it arrives soon.

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Anonymous

14 years, 2 months ago

 

Great review, thank you!

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obsidian

14 years, 2 months ago

 

Looks fantastic cover to cover! Might check it out if it's still available later.

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Anonymous

14 years, 2 months ago

 

P.S. thank you for the review, new reader but finding it very helpful already!

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believe

14 years, 2 months ago

 

this collection of work is my favorite yet

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Esofor

14 years, 2 months ago

 

Thanks for the detailed review! I hope it comes in the mail soon, and I hope it does satisfy my Kantoku cravings for the year.

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Riven

14 years, 2 months ago

 

I love Kantoku's works so much! I can't wait to get this book, as I do not own any of his doujins (but I drool at the scans regularly!) I requested it specially from Animebooks so I might have to wait a bit, but I'm sure it will be worth it. I might end up getting a copy anyway if I decide to buy a full set of his c77 stuff on YJ though. 5th year memorial was a really nice book too; I'd kind of like to pick that one up too if I find it cheap.

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