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« Meridian » Yoshida Seiji Yoshida is an intensely skilled environment artist, and this collection showcases a few of his best pieces. The way he paints foliage is particularly impressive. Artist's twitter: @yoshida_seiji |
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« Mirage » Tokunaga Akimasa Akimasa must be one of the contemporary artists I admire the most-- the sprawling geometries of the city are captured here with perfectly messy penwork. The fisheye and three-point perspective pieces are particularly impressive! Artist's twitter: @AkimatutiX |
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« Tilted » Tokunaga Akimasa This is a smaller collection of Akimasa's illustrations. Artist's twitter: @AkimatutiX |  |
« Donburi » Akai Sashimi Akai Sashimi is another artist I adore: their art is perfectly cute without being saccharine, and they manage to draw maids, deep-sea creatures, and guns with it remaining tremendously wholesome. Artist's twitter: @sas_akai |
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« Alice in Nightmare » Em Nishizuka Over the years, I've accumulated so many of Em Nishizuka's illustration collections! This one is from 2016. I'm very fond of the illustration on the cover. Artist's twitter: @doxxxem |  |
« Portrait 3 » Em Nishizuka This one's from 2015. Is there a Portrait 2 and Portrait 1? I haven't found them (yet). Artist's twitter: @doxxxem |
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« Daco-chan's Caterpillar Picture Book » Em Nishizuka This one is relatively early, from 2014. Each page has a different illustration of a girl with a oversized caterpillar.
Artist's twitter: @doxxxem |
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« Pattern C » Em Nishizuka A tiny 2019 book from Em Nishizuka. This one is based around fabric designs- each page has a pattern designed by the artist and then an illustration with that pattern incorporated.
Artist's twitter: @doxxxem |
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« Girls' Last Tour 2nd Comic Anthology » Various Artists This is an officially published collection of Girls' Last Tour fan comics. (I can't call them doujinshi because they're not self-published, right?) Anyways, it has a lovely assortment of different styles by notable artists, like the person behind Null Meta. I don't know why I bought the second volume and not the first. |
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« Panna Cotta » Shintaro Kago Actually, this is one of the few books here I've bought in person. I grabbed this at a bookstore in NYC when I was 15 and remember being paranoid that they'd ask me for an ID or something. This is a 2015 illustration collection from Kago. They're all pen and watercolor works, with an even mixture of whimsical and guro pieces. |
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« Long Voyage » Range Murata 2012 illustration collection from Murata. I'm one of the many people who strongly prefer his 90s and early 00s illustrations, but this era has its own charm, though this book has the maddening gimmick of having every other page be white with a selection of four colors from the opposing drawing, which makes it seem twice as large as it actually is. What was the point of that? |
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« Line's Union » Range Murata This one is from 2007. By the way, I saw a bootleg lighter with a Murata illustration on it in a convenience store in backwoods northern Greece a few years ago. I wish I'd bought it then. |
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« Ephemeral - Territory of Girls » Various Artists This one is interesting. It's a catalog of a 2021 exhibition at Jiro Miura Gallery in Tokyo in which 45 female artists were asked to portray the "young girl". Considering how many contemporary male painters have built careers off of their depictions of "girlhood", this collection seems apt, able to provide its own personal and uncomfortable perspectives. |  |
« Summer Specimen » Em Nishizuka This one's from 2018 and focused around a summer theme. Artist's twitter: @doxxxem |
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« The Illegal Underland » Em Nishizuka In contrast to the other collections, this is a proper Book, with 120 pages and a mixture of manga and full-page illustrations. Artist's twitter: @doxxxem |
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« Negapoji » Em Nishizuka This illustration collection is themed around a parasitic flatworm, leucochloridium paradoxum (which makes a cameo in the Chainsaw Man opening, by the way). Artist's twitter: @doxxxem |
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« Insect Decoration » Em Nishizuka 2019 illustration collection from Em. Yes, I really like her art!!! Artist's twitter: @doxxxem |
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« 鳩羽つぐはここに居ます。 » Various Artists One of several collections of illustrations of Hatoba Tsugu I've bought. Several artists participated in this one. |
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« Hatoba Tsugu » Hinayukiusa and Izumi Sakurazawa A collection of illustrations of Tsugu drawn by two different artists (neither of whom I was familiar with, but if it's Tsugu, I'll buy anything.) Artist's website: fururi |
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« memories » subachi A short collection of lovely illustrations of Hatoba Tsugu. I'm quite fond of the muted palettes the artist uses here, it suits Tsugu's image well! Artist's tumblr: subachi ※ NSFW |
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« Illusion » Akiko Ijichi Ijichi works using traditional Japanese painting methods, utilizing mineral pigments. This is a 2016 collection. Artist's twitter: @akiijiko |
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« Dignity » Akiko Ijichi This is a more recent monograph collection from Ijichi. There are a few paintings in here which use Surrealist motifs, which I am quite fond of. Artist's twitter: @akiijiko |