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Shimada Humikane Art Works

November 3rd, 2009, 9:39PM by nat | 7 comments

Map of the World

After Strike Witches finished airing in September 2008, Shimada Humikane Art Works was released, in October 2008. Shimada Humikane is the original designer for the Strike Witches and also the father of that term Mecha Musume, describing the cute anthropomorphism of weapons like guns, tanks, and fighter planes.

Shimada Humikane CoverOut of ArmorOcto Under Cover

Strike WitchesStrike WitchesStrike Witches

So while it might seem that all the girls in this book are from Strike Witches, it's just that they stem from Shimada's desire to use his Mecha Musume concepts across a variety of media. However, most of the girls at the front of the book really are from Strike Witches, and this art book is definitely the largest collection from Strike Witches available right now.

Strike Witches Tails!Strike Witches MikoStrike Witches

Strike WitchesCelebrationStrike Witches

Though initially, Strike Witches just seemed like the most hilarious premise to have girls without pants on, there was thankfully more to it than that. But the designs are definitely about the no pants ^^; Though I like the anime adaptation designs by Kazuhiro Takamura I prefer Shimada's art style for the characters.

Crash LandingAlmost ThereStrike Witches in Swimsuits

World at WarSD ProfilesStrike Witches

I felt this book was all over the place with its page layouts. Some pages have full page images, others even have spreads. But for the most part, the art work is tiled, two, three and sometimes more images to a page. While some of the art work is simple with no background art, others are pictures that would have benefited from a larger canvas.

Songbird In Flight

Strike Witches Shot Down Desert

Several of the tiled art works are from the commercial break eye-catchers that aired during the anime. So it's really possible that they just weren't illustrated very large to begin with. But that's unlikely ^^; So yeah, all the eye-catchers from the anime are included in the book.

Map of the World Repair

Size Comparison How to Color

Shimada Humikane Art Works is 112 pages long, and A4 in size. I would say about 47 pages of that is solidly Strike Witches art work, though they do appear a couple of times more in the rest of the book, just not with any consistency. One of the things I disliked is that there are a lot of character profile pages, 12 pages total including the chibi forms of the girls. It would be fine normally, but the images are really small fitting anywhere from 3 to 7 characters on a page.

Sky GirlsFate/Stay Night RiderFlying Chair

Tsukuyomi Moon PhaseWhite WarriorRobo Armor

After the Strike Witches section, there's a lot more of the commissioned art work that Shimada did for other shows as well. There's a really nice version of Rider from Fate/Stay Night as well as the illustration he did of Hazuki from Tsukuyomi Moon Phase that appeared as an extra with on of the DVD releases. His illustration for Megami Magazine Creators Vol. 01 is also in there.

TrisitaAim. Fire!Light Attack

Skater GirlVampire Girl in RedRead to Fight!

There's also art work from Tristia of the Deep Blue Sea. I'm surprised how many artists have drawn those characters at some point, I never thought it was popular as an anime, but it must have been a great game ^^; Shimada's girls look great, even when they're not in mecha form.

InjuredTank T34/85P-38J

ItaliaElectro LolitaFighter Miko

Towards the end, there are a lot of Mecha Musume illustrations, and about 16 pages of them are on white backgrounds. I like that all the girls are modeled after real weapons. I'm not knowledgeable about weapons, but I can google, and it's pretty neat to see the Mecha Musume version of the T34/76 and then the real life version XD

Gun Girl Mecha Mecha Girl

Combat Squirrel Strike Witches

Shimada Humikane Art Works doesn't waste space on an index, instead the author's comments and the image copyright information was next to each of the illustrations in the book. I kind of like it better that way, because you can fit more art work in. This book can be a bit hard to get---it was re-printed in March 2009 after they completely sold out in October last year... only to sell out again in March ^^; But it's definitely worth collecting, as I don't expect many more books by the father of Mecha Musume.

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Avatar for Zeb
Zeb

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Probably an artbook I'd pass on. Young-ish lookig girls were never my cup of tea, and by the sounds of it, its a so-so artbook at what I imagine will be a hefty price. :(

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Anonymous

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Nice review, pretty average looking artbook, pretty skippable! ^_^

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ueano

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Great review!

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Barnee

14 years, 4 months ago

 

Very nice, love strike witches. Thinking of buying this one, thanks for the review, really appreciate seeing before buying!

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lauren

12 years, 6 months ago

 

Will there be another a third season to strike witches

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nat

12 years, 6 months ago

 

Your guess is as good as mine ^^;

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lauren

12 years, 6 months ago

 

Does anyone know if there will be another season???!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!

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