Shinigami and Strangers and Ninjas, Oh, My!

The Arina Tanemura Collection: The Art of Full Moon

Let’s finish off this mini Full Moon o Sagashite celebration with a look at the artbook!

Why did I go on a Full Moon binge anyway? No particular reason. It just turned out that way.

Warning: image-heavy post ahoy!

Item Info:

The Arina Tanemura Collection: The Art of Full Moon
種村有菜collection  満月(フルムーン)をさがしてイラスト集 (Tanemura Arina Collection: Full Moon o Sagashite Irastra [Illustrations] Shuu)
VIZ Media
Release Date: October 21, 2008
MSRP: $19.99

About:

This is a collection focused on Full Moon o Sagashite art. It contains images from covers, splash pages, bonus items, and more. Images from her other works Short-Tempered Melancholic, Time Stranger Kyoko, Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne (Phantom Thief Jeanne) and the short “Gin-yu Meika” are also included. This paperback artbook is just under 70 pages long and is in the usual artbook size.

Photos:

Thoughts:

As I mentioned, this isn’t strictly a Full Moon o Sagashite artbook. But don’t worry if you are only interested in Full Moon; it isn’t until about 2/3rds of the way through that other illustrations start popping up. I named the other series included in the About section, but I would say Time Stranger Kyoko gets the most attention out of the that list. It’s not too surprising since Kyoko was released after Jeanne, which had its own artbook. (It is unavailable in English.)

The title on the dust jacket is gold foil. The actual cover is a sketch from one of the manga’s title pages. Like many artbooks, the volume opens with a lace insert. Paper quality is thick and good.

Tanemura’s comments are included by the illustrations themselves. Personally, I like this better since it’s easier to go between the artist’s thoughts and the picture itself. On the other hand, having all the comments at the end of the book might be easier for some people to read since it doesn’t need to be in as small of font. I think here the text is very readable, and each piece of text has a colored icon in the shape of playing card symbols to help match it to the correct drawing.

As usual, there are a variety of image types and shapes. The images of the covers are pretty unnecessary, since if you are interested in the artbook, chances are, you already own the series.

The vast majority of pictures are of the colored splash pages from the original magazine serialization. It makes me want to cut them out and glue them over the pages in the volumes to make my own deluxe version of the manga. Tanemura comments a few times about how the images looked in black-and-white, so you can always pull out the manga and see what didn’t translate well into greyscale. According to her comments, some of her drawings when they went to print look different than when she made them as well, like a dark green background looking turning more black when it went to print.

The others are mostly from promotional items. I don’t think there are a lot of images that were made just for this collection. I don’t really mind, as often furoku and zen-in pictures are super rare anyway. Plus, Tanemura’s splash pages are usually pretty good. Still, a few other illustrations would have been welcome of course, especially if you’re looking at this right after finishing Full Moon o Sagashite.

The Jeanne images are minimal, just a few celebrating the series ending and whatnot. Characters from Time Stranger Kyoko have some interesting designs, and I can see shades of some of her later characters in them. I wanted more Chocola though.

The artbook also includes a poster. One side is ROUTE:L, the other the four Shinigami and Mitsuki.

Also, while the word “risqué” may be a bit strong, a few images are, for lack of a better term, edgy. Mitsuki is supposedly naked in one image, but everything is blocked by a shirt she’s holding. In another, Mitsuki seriously appears to be in her underwear. Even Tanemura’s notes have a sweatdrop as she says it’s supposed to be a bikini because it absolutely looks like a bra and panties. There’s not even a beach or water in the picture…

Final Comments:

This isn’t the best artbook out there, but it’s also relatively inexpensive. If you’ve liked the title pages in the manga and have wondered what they looked like originally, this collection is for you. Otherwise, I doubt too many people are huge fans of the other works featured here except for Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne, but that series only has a few images.

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4 Comments

  1. shaddowcat99

    I’m glad you went on a binge. No one talks about full moon any more, so enjoyed reading these!

    Reply
    1. Krystallina (Post author)

      I’m glad you enjoyed this trip down memory lane! 🙂

      Reply
  2. The Otaku Judge

    I can see some of the risque art, you mention, in picture five.

    Reply
    1. Krystallina (Post author)

      I intentionally chose the Dragon Ball fanart since I thought it was safer than show the 12-year-old heroine in some of her… um, at-home poses..

      Reply

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