Review by Mana
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Pose Kyara Ka Ga Hakadoru! Moto Tai Sakusei TekuniIzu Chi / ChoFun HTD
I like this book and feel it's pretty fresh for what's on the market. It's rare to see a HTD book reference the 3D models that are from CSP and other software, and this book makes pretty good use of them. Even though I like the use of the 3D models, some of them look a little off in terms of their proportions, and that's reflected in the process/illustration. But there are a nice range of poses and it's a good introduction to figuring things out either way.
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"Shu" No Engi & Enshutsu Technique Danshi Kyara Wo Miseru!Hayashi Akira / ChoNo Good Reference Book
I don't recommend this book at all. The cover looks pretty nice and that's very deceitful, because the content inside is pretty much no good. A lot of the hands don't look right for the characters they're attached to. Sometimes it's a clash of the way it's drawn/rendered, and sometimes it's even an actual joint and angle clash. Some of the poses even look like AI art with how bad the hand came out. Plenty of the hands (and pose+angle combo) are just inaccurate, and even as a basic reference to outline a pose, they're not particularly good. A lot of the art itself just isn't very good, and the process for some of the shots is rather awkward and random jumps are made in the expression and pose at times. This book really is just bad, even for its price.
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Kamigata No Collection Jitsuyo Recipe Illustrator Hikkei Multi Angle TaioKurayoshi Samu / ChoOkay Hair HTD
If you really like Kurakichi Sam's art, it'd be fine to get. As a HTD book for hair, it's nothing too new or even more detailed than some older books. Some of the styles look fine, but kind of lose how stylized they are because the art looks rather flat at times. The range of styles isn't bad for one book, but it would be just as well to buy two, better books.
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Chokotto Jintai Kaibo Gaku De Attoteki Ni Umaku Egakeru Character DessinMi Ni Maru/ ChoMinimaru at last
I really like watching Minimaru's channel, so I'm really happy to see a HTD at last. Even still, I can't rate this book too highly. It does have some good references, and for a semi-comprehensive HTD book, it's quite good! But some of this could be better used as reference spread out between other books. To me, some of the build/body guides aren't that different from what I've seen in other HTD books that cover pose really well. What I do like about Minimaru's is that besides the structural side, it includes the block outline/element that can help for some (learning) artists and isn't always used in plenty of HTD books. I like Minimaru's croquis a lot, and that section is helpful and fun. But if I were to recommend a pose book in general, it would be the Junichi Hayama books, or EBIMO's Bold Characters. If you need croquis guidance, Minimaru isn't bad though. The rest of the HTD is good, but again, nothing special. Outside of that, the chibi Minimaru is cute to see, but it's also a shame there isn't some significant use of the 3D model in the book as a guide here and there. (Maybe so the rating can stay where it is?) As a HTD, I don't think it's really that great, but it's a nice book overall and pretty good if you just like looking at Minimaru's content.
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Reijo Akuyaku Reijo Seijo No Egaki Kata Fantasy De Haeru Character & Isho Design Kara Action Made
IchijinshaReijo Akuyaku Reijo Seijo No Egaki Kata Fantasy De Haeru Character & Isho Design Kara Action MadeIchijinshaDrawing Villainesses & SaintessI was interested in this as a fan of Villainess LNs, manga (and manhwa). I thought given how much of this content is joseimuke oriented, this how-to-draw would be too. I don't know who the audience for this is, but I don't think it's a particularly great guide regardless of intended (gender) demographic. There's only four artists for this book, and looking up their Twitter, they aren't joseimuke artists. Which is a shame and disappointing to me coming from Ichijinsha, because they have plenty of villainess content creators to use here. I don't know if these artists are well known in shounen/seinen circles (I haven't seen them floating around), but if so, that solves the demographic but it's still disappointing that they went so small in background in for their artist selection. As far as the outfits and character designs are concerned, they're not terrible, but they're also pretty boring. There's older htd books with better fantasy styles to use, and cross-referencing between those and actual series feels like a better guide than this. I can't even say there's much joy in just looking at the art/designs in this book. Which is kind of frustrating since the cover is so lovely. Feels like Ichijinsha just wanted to throw something out to capitalize on a trend instead of make a sincere effort for even a basic htd book. If you're really obsessed with villainesses to extreme degrees, you could add it to your collection for the heck of it, but I recommend saving your money otherwise.
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Romancing SaGa Re;univerSe 3rd Anniversary Official Story Archives Porka & Joe (SE-MOOK)SQUARE ENIXThree Years of Reuni
For the content, the book is really three stars. It's not as comprehensive as I thought it would be with art and details on some of the Styles/characters, and it doesn't entirely feel consistent. But, given the improved quality of the Styles' artwork over time, it is a gorgeous and cool book to look through. I don't know why the book doesn't have the SaGa Series tag on the sidebar, but it is a great SaGa product for anyone looking for artwork of SaGa characters, or miscellaneous RS RS information.
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Orchestral SaGa Official Pamphlet (Booklet)SQUARE ENIXSaGaOke 2021
A short but lovely pamphlet. It suits the 2021 orchestra performance it's from well. The size is great, the art and photos are clear. I like the layout. Hopefully in the future, Neowing/CDJ will be able to sell products like this w/o the need for proxy, and it will be under the SaGa Series brand tag for fans to easily find it.
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SaGa 1,2,3 Original Soundtrack Revival Disc [Blu-ray Disc / OST with Footage]Game MusicSaGa Colle Revival
The sound quality maintained for the Bluray is great, but the videos/footage they put together for the songs is excellent too. Some of it was funny as much as it was adrenaline-inducing (like for some of the boss songs). Hopefully Neowing/CDJ will include the SaGa Series brand tag on this and the other Bluray Revivals so SaGa fans can find them easily, or even others that stumble onto these will be introduced to other SaGa products.
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Ugoki no Aru Pose no Kakikata Dansei (Male) Character Hen (Genkosha MOOK)kyachiHTD Male characters, w/variety
I find how to draw books focused on male characters still more rare in comparison, and as an older one, this is still rather unique. It's not necessarily a BL focused HTD book, though there are some BL poses later in. Mostly, it's refreshing that there are cool *and* sensual poses/references for drawing male characters, as the latter especially is something I don't see often. The art style in the book may not be as high quality overall to some of the art styles in newer books, but this is still a worthwhile purchase to me for its content being unique and quite handy.
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Manga Chara no Shuchu Training Kihon Dosa Hen (KOSAIDO Manga Kobo)Kosaido Manga KoboGreat purchase, great reference
Collecting and trying to use a variety of HTD books for reference and guidance, I find this one has a lot of great material. It has information and guides for drawing male and female characters, with a slight variety in art styles, and across a variety of poses, and expression/personality. It has basic face/head and bust templates, and many of the poses have a variety of composition, angle and motion and/or energy to them. The back also has a nice listing of each artist, and their social media/website. For a great way to help get a sense of natural poses and with different demeanor to the character, I highly recommend this book. Only 4/5 star since some may find some of the art styles a little conventionally unattractive, but they still do a good job of expressing movement and expression.
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Kiwameru! Kyara Sakuga (Character Drawing) (KITORA)toshiTypical HTD
This has a nice variety of poses and the sense of movement and expression here is pretty fluid. But otherwise, it feels pretty typical for a HTD? There's male and female characters on the cover, so I expected the book to be more general, but it's another book that not only focuses on drawing female characters, but often with a fanservice-y or kinda overtly sensual (and sometimes) racy angle. Although I don't mind that, I wish the distributor and author would have labeled and advertised it as such to avoid confusion. The summary also mentions "How do you design an original character," but I don't feel this aspect is explored very strongly or especially well, particularly in comparison to some of the slightly older books. Even the "exploring personality" angle comes down to a bit of specific personality traits/subtypes of female characters, and not great advice for expressing characters as a whole. Overall, it's not hard to follow and not bad for a first time book as a primary reference, but not as what it fully advertises or as broad in comparison to even other books available with CDJ.
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Shizenna Shigusa Illustration Pose ShuHobby JapanGreat HTD guide
For a newer book, this one does a great job of building on what many HTD books offer. It's great as a starting point, or as a complement to others. The Japanese may be hard to follow for anyone just learning, but the images alone do a good job of conveying what's natural movement and positioning for the body. The early parts aren't as heavily gendered, so it helps to use the material when modeling a character regardless of gender and just figuring out a build. The rest of the book is fairly gendered, but a lot of the poses are across a diversity of angles, composition and scenes. There's a lot of motion, personality and kind of elements. There's also posing for pairs across different moods. A lot of the later poses don't have much guides to them, but as references, they are nice to use and can help create ideas for scenes. Probably one of the more broad and well-rounded HTD books I've seen, and definitely recommended.
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Motif Wo Minakute Mo Egakeru Jimbutsu Dessin 50 No Point! Manga Animation No Jimbutsu Ga Ga Jotatsu Suru! Kanzen Kaisetsu (Egaki Teku!)Naga Sa Wa Toro / ChoHTD w/ "important points"
I find a lot of the anatomy in this book is more stiff than other HTD books, and some of the art styles may be a little unattractive. But it also has a lot of older and/or more realistic art styles, and that's pretty nice and refreshing. This one also takes its time more to explain basic anatomy in one section, and is more thorough in touching on why some of the highlighted poses are unnatural in basic anatomy and angle. Some of the poses are a little contrived and sometimes the book goes out of its way to make a slightly unnatural pose work anyway. There are other books that not only showcase more dynamic and rather uncommon poses, but also do a better job of providing basic guides to them. I do like the art style in this one a lot, since it reminds me of the 80s-90s art styles, found in both shonen and shojo, so it's a nice browse for that.
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Rutile No Renkinjutsu 1 (Hana to Yume Comics)Sakuma RenCute Alchemy
I bought this because I love alchemy, the rise of alchemy/chemistry oriented content in joseimuke LNs, and the cute art. It was kind of disappointing, but I probably set myself up. Having never read any of the manga-ka's other work, and this being a fantasy HtY title, I expected something a little more serious. It looks like it could get there, but a lot of the first volume had quite a bit of gags and comedy. Nothing wrong with that and some of them were funny, but some of it kind of dragged on. The pacing felt a little awkward as well. Overall, it seems like a charming title, but probably like it will be (or should be) short. I expected something between the Atelier games and Shirayuki, but this was more like a comedy with some cool character designs and potentially cute world-building.
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Ane Ageha (Oneesan Ageha) May 2021 IssueShufu no tomo shaAneMode
I recently stopped getting (Ane)Ageha because I felt this and a later issue pushed a diet and weight loss angle too hard, but Ageha is still a great magazine for beautiful, mature looks. The make-up styles and outfits displayed in the early half of the issues are still as gorgeous and sometimes glamorous as ever, if not more so. I love the variety of the photoshoots, and coords overall. It is a lot less focused on coords and lifestyle overall compared to EGG and nuts, but it does showcase more formal looks overall compared to either of those two.
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Happie nuts 2 (POWER)TaiyotoshoNuts about nuts
I love gal/gyaru styles, streetwear and more mature looks, and EGG and (Happie) nuts both deliver on that. Between the two, I like the looks in both, but nuts definitely delivers a more mature energy overall. Not just sexier, but also with a bit more elegance or power at times. It was also pleasant seeing a model with muscle tone on her wearing a swimsuit. I love that, like EGG, nuts has great lifestyle features and also features mom's (with their children/babies). Both magazines also highlight more than just very pale/light models, and it's nice to see that trend still continue in gyaru looks since there can be some colorism even within gyaru communities. There's great dressed down, and dressed up coords, and some very striking, everyday or special occasion make-up looks. I don't know how seasonal nuts has been recently, but this felt like a great Summer going into Fall issue. The only downside is the lingerie in the back feels like a lot of the usual, lingerie I see everywhere. Same straps, same lace. Still very sexy though! I just hope they have better looks next time for that angle.
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MEN'SKNUCKLE ( Men's Nakkuru September 2021 IssueTaiyotoshoContent warning?
I was looking forward to reading Mens Knuckle for the first time, but this specific issue is advertising Nazi uniforms? It's on the back and the inside, and I suppose it's related to a specific brand or something? But it was quite jarring to see the swastika paired with a blatant uniform (copy/inspiration). It put me off of Mens Knuckle, but CDJapan does sell other mens' fashion magazines thankfully. The rest of the issue does have great looks and brands, across street-wear and yukata. But be warned if you don't want to support such a brand being advertised.
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"Aikatsu Stars! (Anime / Data Carddass)" Insert Song Single 2 Natsu ColleAIKATSU STARS!Ideal Summer
The Haru Colle/Spring Collection from Aikatsu! Stars was really cute and fun, but with all of the seasons out now, Natsu Colle is definitely the best to me. It has both emotional and energetic songs, with great melodies. I appreciate each side of Summer they showed, and the girls' voices and song lyrics each hold up great for the songs. I love TokimekiRaran the most, as it's kind of subtle empowering theme with its lyrics, and is very uplifting. I usually prefer the albums over the singles for Aikatsu!, especially for Stars, but Natsu Colle really stands out.
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S.H.Figuarts Aikatsu! Ichigo Hoshimiya (Soleil Ver. )Soleil's Cute
As far as Figuarts go, this is definitely a nice one. I wouldn't get it, if not for the clearance price, but it's great quality as usual and for $25, it's a steal. This doesn't compare to school uniform Ichigo, and an Angely outfit would have made for a better look for a Figuarts (hopefully that'll come one day!), but this would be great to have with the others, and is nice for an Aikatsu! collector in general.
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figma Magic Knight Rayearth Hikaru ShidoFigma Knight Hikaru
Per Figma quality, this is excellent in many ways. They've done an excellent job capturing Hikaru's personality and quirks, and the range of poses you can replicate or do is amazing. There's a lot of fine, perfect and not overdone detail with her hair and clothing. It sounds like Umi and Fuu may have been confirmed, so it will be exciting to see if they compare. This is a great figma for CLAMP and MKR collectors alike, or general figma and figure collectors.