【Artbook】Robot Super Color Comic Vol.2

Let’s try this again…The post about Vol.1 (which I suggest as a starting point) was done in a pretty terrible way, so I’m trying to improve on that. I’m sorry that I am an amateur. I’ll try to do improve on this next time. Hover over each image to see a caption, and click to enlarge.

This post consists of three (general) parts:
1. List of Works
2. Opinion
3. Packaging

Robot Vol.2 Cover. Click to enlarge. (Illust: Range Murata)

This is volume 2 of 10 volumes, 5 of which have been translated and distributed in North America. Vol.2 is published by Digital Manga Publishing.

List of Works + respective artists in Vol.2:
(by English translated titles and in order of appearance)

1. Dragon Fly Ch.2 – MAESHIMA Shigeki (22 page manga)
2. Ebony & Ivory Ch.2 – YASUDA Suzuhito (10 page manga)
3. There Goes Suzume Robo!! – Sabe (4 page manga)
4. Wasteland Ch.3 – YOSHITOSHI ABe (18 page manga)
5. Flowers – MAEDA Hirotaka (8 page manga)
6. Stars and Blue – Miggy (7 pages of themed illustrations)
7. Pez & Dekosuke – ASADA Hiroyuki (1 short comic and illustration fold-out)
8. “Velvet” Monochrome Version – TAJIMA Sho-U (1 spread illustration)
9. Sedouka Ch.2 – NAGASAWA Shin (10 page manga)
10. Delicious Adventures – YUG (4 page manga)
11. House of Fish – Teikoku Shounen (3 page manga, 1 spread illustration)
12. The Depths of November – MIURA Yasuto (8 page manga)
13. Eventyr -What The Diamond Discovered- – HACCAN (9 page story w/ inset illustrations)
14. The Oni Smiles When You Mention Next Year – NEKOI Mie (6 page manga)
15. Witch’s Stipulation – DOWMANSAYMAN (8 page manga)
16. Within The Mirror – SANBE Kei
17. [Untitled] – MURATA Range (2 illustrations; landing page and exit page)

Opinion: This volume is probably one of my favourites out of the 5 volumes I got, because of the substantial amounts of content from all the artists I like the most, those artists being Maeshima Shigeki, Yoshitoshi ABe, Teikoku Shounen, and HACCAN. However, I personally thought that much of the other ones were a little less than stellar, especially Tajima’s black and white illustration and Sanbe’s manga. I also also still unable to like Miura’s odd style and story.

【Artbook】Robot Super Color Comic Vol.1

First time doing an artbook(?) review(??), please go easy on me. Also this post is really long. 1276 words of terribility.

Robot Vol.1 Cover. Click to enlarge.(Illust: Range Murata)

Robot Super Color Comic is a colour manga anthology series with 10 volumes in total and consists of illustrators and manga artists selected by Range Murata, who illustrates all the covers for the series. The first 3 volumes have been translated and published in English by Digital Manga Publishing, and volumes 4 and 5 have been published by Udon Entertainment.

Although it’s billed as a colour comic book, it’s more accurate to describe it as an artbook due to the focus on art and also for how it’s “packaged”: it’s printed in an oversized book format with thick, heavy paper and a jacket around the actual book. Despite being printed in China (Not that I have anything against China), this localized release is high quality, especially in terms of printing and material, and most likely does justice to the original Japanese release. This first volume weighs in at more than 700 grams, with 164 pages in total.

A list of comics in the book by their corresponding artist is listed below, by their English translated titles and in order of appearance:

1. Groundpass Drive – MURATA Range (4 themed illustrations)
2. Picnic – NARUCO Hanaharu (8 page manga)
3. Pez & Hot Strawberry – ASADA Hiroyuki (11 page manga)
4. Angels at the Planetarium – TAJIMA Sho-U (12 page B&W manga + 1 illustration)
5. Carogna – ITOU Mami (4 page manga)
6. Wasteland – YOSHITOSHI ABe (8 page manga)
7. There Goes Suzume Robo!! – Sabe (4 page manga)
8. Hemohemo – Yug (6 page manga)
9. Oputon – OKAMA (4 page manga)
10. Dragon Fly – MAESHIMA Shigeki (12 page manga)
11. Dream of the Empty Cage – Miggy (4 themed illustartions)
12. Biting Summer Play – MIURA Yasuto (8 page manga)
13. Sedouka – NAGASAWA Shin (8 page manga)
14. Ebony & Ivory – YASUDA Suzuhito (8 page manga)
15. Primary Color Book – HAKUA Ugetsu (4 illustrations)
16. Eventyr – HACCAN (11 page story w/ inset illustrations)
17. Dragon’s Heaven – KOBAYASHI Makoto (4 page manga)
18. Angels – KINUTANI Yu (8 page manga)
19. Clash!-Revenge of Hunk Kung Fu vs Ugly Kung Fu-Find a Groom! – NEKOI Mie (8 page manga)
20. Moonlight – SANBE Kei (8 page manga)

Opinion: Awesome anthology. More than half of the stories in this are to my liking, and for the ones I really liked, I really, really liked. Since all the artists featured in the book were given free reign to do whatever they wanted, the result was that everything was creative and experimental, which is something I love.

My favourite story was definitely HACCAN’s “Eventyr”, though. Thank you to HACCAN for exceeding all of my expectations. Not only are the illustrations beautiful and colourful, the story is one of the most (truly!) innocent ones I’ve read in a long time. The gist is that in a fantasy world, the only two surviving witches left in the world decide to go out into the human world for the first time, and to their joy, they’re accepted and praised by the humans, who used to fear and hate witches. However, something happens and the humans hate them again. The witches are portrayed as a pair of bright-eyed, curious youths (a boy and a girl), and one could really feel the innocent and sincere tone of the whole story, further emphasized by the artwork because they’re smiling in 98% of them! Best thing ever!

【Illustrator】 HACCAN

This post became really big and detailed entirely by accident. Also, thanks so much for 10,000+ (unique) hits! I wanted to do a celebration post but I decided that I’m going to pretend to be humble. Unless you guys WANT to see a pointless post on this blog or something.

Artwork from Avalon Code. Click to enlarge.

HACCAN is a professional illustrator best known for his colourful artwork in games such as Mushihimesama Futari and Avalon Code. He also does many illustrations for light novels, children’s chapter books, fantasy novels, and trading card games. HACCAN is from Hokkaido, Japan, likes collecting weird things, such as odd-flavoured ice cream containers, has a panda-like figure for a mascot, and likes reading children’s books, works of literature, and Weekly Shounen Jump. His birthday is April 6th, 1978, is 31 years old at the time of writing, and is friends  (or acquaintances?) with yocky, one of my favourite illustrators along with HACCAN.

HACCAN’s fantasy-styled illustration style is immediately distinguishable by the vivid, bright, and varied pastel colours he paints most of his artwork with, and he is also extremely good at coordinating colours. Although there are many different and sometimes opposing shades present, they never clash or look out of place. As well, HACCAN likes to draw with a lot of light, coloured lines that gives off a detailed and semi-realistic feel, and uses darker lines to outline the perimeter. This is most apparent when he draws hair as the majority of strands are drawn.

As for character designs, they are unique and give a twist on the regular anime-style characters. Even though the large majority of them have large, round eyes, abnormal hair colours, and extravagant costumes, there are a lot of small details, and the costumes are heavily influenced by HACCAN’s fantasy style, even in the usual sailor uniform. HACCAN seems to draw younger girls the most, but he is also just as capable of drawing well-figured teenage girls, handsome young men, manly muscled men, and even intimidating creatures.

The atomosphere that HACCAN’s illustrations give off is a very active sense of liveliness, as denoted by the energetic poses and sincere expressions plus the rich colours, and also a slightly exotic type of feel, strengthened by the relatively realistic backgrounds on which he places his characters, as well as the very detailed and well thought out outfits. To me, it’s this dynamic style that makes HACCAN’s works so easy to appreciate, which is probably one of the reasons why his illustrations are used in so many different genres of media, from fantasy books to children’s novels.

Website: http://www1.odn.ne.jp/haccan/ (Japanese)
Old website: http://haccan.tripod.com/menu.html (Japanese)
Wikipedia entry: http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/HACCAN (Japanese)
Duel Master wiki entry: http://www27.atwiki.jp/duel_masters/pages/3403.html (Japanese)
Mushihimesama Futari Gallery: http://www.peacefuldeath.net/mushihimesama/mushihimesama2/