"Dancing Girl vol.1" by Ryo Nakae and guests

 So, here we are again, with a smol review while we wait for the next shipment of goods to arrive. One thing I noticed, is that my Mandarake wishlist is steadily reducing, and I might actually... run out of stuff I want?! unlikely. Still missing two Robamoto, and there is more stuff that is simply sort of difficult to track down. As I collect only original and non-h dōjinshi the pool is a bit smaller than the average collector's, but I'm far from done. For some of the rare things I might have to go back to Otaku Republic, the pricier option. 

For today, let's take a look at a semi-vintage (2015) offering by designer, developer, and fellow dog lover Ryo Nakae (whose portfolio you can find here). Similar to people like Robamoto, CHOCO and others I have reviewed in the past, the artist's mindset as a professional graphic / web designer filters through, and Nakae's illustrations have a sleek, striking sense of depth, field and color that manages to evade typical PIXIV manga / anime tropes. This is added value to me, as I really appreciate dōjin creators who bring elements of professional / commercial design to their craft.

This is particularly the case with Dancing Girl vol.1 (yes, there is a vol.2, and I will get it eventually). A high quality full color publication, though a bit on the side of slim at only 14 pages, it features a selection of illustrations designed to look like brand advertisements from a fashion magazine, with a number of nods to real-world houses. I do learn from the captions that the model sporting the clothes happens to be character Ran Shibuki from Aikatsu, a gacha game I'm unfamiliar with - as it often happens in the case of this sort of dōjinshi, the reference makes litte difference, and you can simply enjoy the illustrations as 'pretty character wears nice clothes in well-designed panels'. 

We also have a couple of guest artists. One is Daisuke Nagai, the other is Futa. Both entirely new names to me - though, much like Nakae, they both seem to be designers-by-day who dabble in illustration and dōjin work as a side gig. One illustration each is a bit too little to pass judgment, so I'll keep my eyes open for their stuff. 

Not much to add about this one, a nice short offering displaying a professional's keen eye for design and composition. Well done! The dōjinshi also has a dedicated website, which is pretty cool in its own right - you can find more links both for Nakae and the guest contributors. 

Hardfest 3

So, here it is - Hardfest 3, a collection of difficult maps from various Doom modders, to which I contributed two maps and a number of MIDI tracks. I have been part of both its first and second installment (the latter won a Cacoward, if you care about that garbage beauty pageant), so it's nice to be able to say that I am one of few mappers who took part in all three editions. Yay! More stuff of mine here. 

The first Hardfest was one of the first Doom community projects I took part in, after re-discovering Doom modding after... oh, I don't know, a twenty year hiatus? My map for it, "The Smegma Flow", was rudimentary at best, especially if seen through the lens of my mapping skills today - still, I'm somewhat melancholically attached to it, and it has a kickass MIDI by LPad. It's definitely a mood, and I think that map has a something that no other map of mine really recaptured afterwards. The project itself was quite a ride - from humble beginnings, from a number of droputs who are probably eating their liver out now, to very minor recognition.

Hardfest 2 was a much bigger affair from the get-go: more mappers, more musicians, more of everything. I made my, so far, only linedef limit-grazing map ("The Dollhouse", 100 lines short of the Boom limit), and a secret shitpost map which really stretches the limits of 'doable'. Regrettably, this project also coincided with me opening my eyes as to the sort of toxic place most of the classic Doom community is: it was, in many ways, my 'community divorce' project. When it came out it wasn't particularly popular even with the difficult maps crowd, and I still believe the Cacoward was an inside tribute. But hey, accolades are accolades, amirite?

Hardfest 3... heh, good project, but I don't have much to talk about. I joined it when it was pretty much in the final phases, all I saw is that a load of the people who showed interest ended up making nothing for it. A few, I guess, are now too popular to bother with community mud; others were probably hoping for another easy Caco and fell by the wayside. My contributions to the project are two heavy reworks of previous maps of mine: both, in my opinion, fairly high quality, but I'll let you judge.

Now that this is out, aside for a project I have already turned my maps in for (and that might very well never happen), it's fair to say I have exhausted my Doom commitments. Mapping aside, I was never crazy over the game as a player: if a different game had afforded this sort of ease of moddability, I would have certainly chosen it over Doom. Couple that with disillusion over most of the community around the game (especially Doomworld's holier-than-thou, hierarchical, OB-oriented mentality; but also a couple of super toxic Discord servers), disappointment with current mapping trends (ie the trend of shitting out speedmapping projects at the speed of light, gotta get that quick dopamine shot right?), and it's fair to say I'm pretty much done with Doom. My time is better spent elsewhere: visual novels, writing, YN fangames, touching grass perhaps.

So yeah, I might make a map for RAMP2025 if it happens, but that's a big 'if', and that's pretty much it. Anything of mine you'll see from now on is likely stuff I turned in ages ago, and gets released only now. It was a good run, I had my fun, glad to leave the toxicity behind and see what's in store for me from now on. 

"廃墟探求" by Mocha / "Artworks 14" by Yyish

Still cold, still miserable, I hate this season. Why can't it be fall forever? ;--; New semester in uni too, got a couple of courses that will likely kick my ass. No matter, the reviews will keep flowing! 

Aaand, to wrap up the month, also being the single post of this month, a double feature! It's two artbooks so, since there is not as much to comment, I figured I could get two excellent purchases out of the way. We're talking about two artists who, if you stroll around the japanese Twitter-sphere or PIXIV, you probably already encountered: Mocha and わいっしゅ. They're both very well known for their work as background artists, professional and dōjin, and a fixture in PIXIV's most viewed. Mocha also had, recently a solo exhibit.

But let's take it one step at a time. 廃墟探求 ("Exploring Ruins") is a 36 pages, full color artbook from 2019 by Mocha, whose only real flaw is the panoramic, rectangual format I hate so much because it makes fitting the dōjinshi on my shelf an absolute pain :S aside from that, what we have in our hands is an excellent, professional-grade publication that fully displays Mocha's penchant for beautiful, msyterious landscapes firmly rooted in 'realism' (to a degree, of course), colored by that touch of nostalgic whimsy that would make this work a perfect fit for the next Shinkai flick's backgrounds. There are, surprisingly, remarkably few ruins depicted: instead, there is a whole lot of rural japanese countryside, from forlorn stations to endlessly stretching country roads -- occasionally dotted by schoolgirls, or families out for a walk. There is definitely a nostalgic feel to it: one could believe they're watching cel art from a slice of life anime. 

Like a sibling, similar but entirely different, stands Yyish's background work: they are a professional (and a certified instructor) in the field of computer graphics, and it shows; while their art is still unmistakably bakground art, the spirit and attitude by which the matter is approached couldn't be more different. Artworks 14 (from 2023) is a slightly slimmer affair than Mocha's, though still full color, consisting entirely of full page spreads of largely fantasy background artwork, rendered with a precision and detail that leaves one speechless: there is no painterly intention, only the painstaking rendering of art that could well befit a high quality JRPG. The level of detail is, frankly, astounding. One other difference to note is that, unlike Mocha, わいっしゅcompletely banishes the human figure from the setting: the architecture, its lights and shadows, stand on their own as the true protagonists of the scene depicted. 

While I have no conclusive proof, it seems to me that CG and 3D play a much larger part in Yyish's work compared to Mocha's: nothing wrong with that, they are different ways to approach background art, both valid and, as we can see from the results, both equally successful. What one likes more is entirely a matter of taste: personally, I appreciate Mocha's nostalgic spirit, as much as I appreciate Yyish's painstaking rendering of light and matter.

So take your pick - for me, I'll go for both :P 

"Tabemonopool - international edition" by Konno Takashi

     Here it is, another one I meant to purchase for a while, but only got around to recently. It was well worth the wait!

    Tabemonopool - international edition is, as the title might suggest, a two-language (JP / english) edition of a 2015 artbook by Konno Takashi, an active and prolific illustrator - mostly for games and book covers, but also roleplaying games. You can check out their PIXIV or their Twitter for more. They have a very distinct visual style, melding together the high detail of traditional Japanese RPGish illustration work, with a more chibi aesthetics, especially when it comes to characters.

    Not my cup of tea usually but, as I mentioned before, I am a sucker for illustration books that also have a concept behind them, and this is the case with Tabemonopool. The glossy, full-color, 72 pages publication (which, by the way, you can get through Tokyo Otaku Mode if you're not fluent in moon runes) features, in an image + text spread format, the delicious coming together (oops!) of incredibly well-rendered Japanese and Chinese dishes, with cute chibi girls in sukumizu. The two go together like fine cuisine, if we are to believe the author. Seems legit. 

    The range of dishes, divided between breakfast, lunch and dinner foodstuff, is astounding: we are treated to traditional Japanese cuisine (okonomiyaki, salmon roe), street food (takoyaki) and fusion dishes (I can confirm: I have never heard of neapolitan pasta), all conveniently labeled by typical price range, sourcing and eating style, along with a two-language, tongue-in-cheek description of why each dish is the best one can get, and why it's also best enjoyed around cute girls in swimsuits. 

    The visual style is excellent. Save for a couple chapter openers, the focus is entirely on each dish, shown in lavishing serving, sure to make your mouth water (I could surely go for an okonomiyaki - in a certain place in Miyajima, I bet they still laugh at that one foreigner who ate four of them in a single sitting...). Each plate then becomes the setting for one of Konno's cute, whimsical chibi girls, who sure seem to enjoy their time steaming and frying along with delicious ingredients.

    Special note for the English: I am not sure who did the translation, but it's actually fairly good; certainly an upgrade over the Engrish dōjinshi usually subject me to...

    So yeah, great purchase, definitely worth a look, especially if you're into cutesy illustrations, and good food. 

"Blow" by ぴぃたぁそると

 This is another one I discovered through Twitter. I'm not a huge JRPG player - not, at least, until very recently - so I simply followed ぴぃたぁそると (Peter Salt) out of mere curiosity for their colorful, dynamic illustrations of cute, sporty girls. Little did I know they they actually have quite the pedigree, having worked on pixel art for Secret of Mana 3, Final Fantasy tactics, and a number of other JRPG titles before seemingly switching to mostly dōjin works.

Blow is a collection of illustrations dating all the way back to 2018 (full color, 24 pages). They showcase, more or less, the same graphic and thematic style ぴぃたぁそるとcarries on to this very day: full body pinups of girls that would feel right at home as characters of a JRPG or ligthhearted fighting game. There are no backgrounds at all, the figure (mostly that of a young girl, occasionally accompanied by a mascot) being instead the sole center of attention. One of the artist's trademark are their characters' extremely plastic, dramatic poses; and the vivid color, which stand out all the more because of the lack of backgrounds. Traits that, overall, belie the artist's origins as a pixel / character designer. While the illustrations often have a fantasy touch to them, more realistic depictions of sporty girls are also included. Each  illustration comes with a short commentary, providing general background info. 

So yeah, a charming collection of simple, to the point, but effective characters designs, that catch the eye with their liveliness and vivid colors. Recommended, and you can look at the artist's Twitter for more - they're very active to this day. 

"Shiny Ad Catalogue" by estroitia

I must admit I am almost entirely unfamiliar with the Idolmaster thing - as much of a weeb as I am, I also am entirely uninterested in the world of Japanese idols; a trait I apparently don't share with many dōjin creators, as Idolmaster paraphernalia is pretty much everywhere.

I occasionally grumble when (mostly by fault of my poor observation skills) I buy a dōjinshi which turns out to be Idolmaster crap, but there is a silver lining to the cloud, as I have already happened twice upon works that, in spite of belonging to this dreadful fandom, actually happened to be excellent on their own merit. Shiny Ad Catalogue (dating 2021) is one such cases (the other I might review at some point in the future).

 
The first, curious feature of Shiny Ad Catalogue is that the circle that produced it, "estroitia", does not seem to be entirely Japanese. While the dōjinshi itself is in Japanese, according to their website estroitia is in fact a Chinese circle, which operates and distributes through both Chinese and Japanese channels and conventions. Biographies are rather succinct, so I can't really say whether the circle's members, 夕語 and ホシノフラワー, are both Chinese using aliases, or otherwise. Pretty cool stuff either way.

 

The dōjinshi illustration book itself is pretty cool too. At 24 pages full color and A4 format, it uses one of those pseudo-meta conceits I love so much in dōjin works: it presents its illustrations as a collection of ads for fictional products, endorsed by a variety of Idolmaster chicks. The book is a collaborative work, coordinated by the circle's two main members: it actually features illustrations by nineteen different artists, both Chinese and Japanese.


First of all, let's get out of the way that the pin-ups might as well be no Idolmaster idols at all, for allthat it matters: I'm sure some series nerd could identify each one of them based on hairstyle and such; but, to the ends of the collection, the could just be any pretty bishoujo really. Fidelity to the ad format is uneven: while some illustrations are basically just pinups, barely featuring the product, some could easily pass for actual anime-styled ads as I often saw in my time in Tokyo and Kyoto. Standouts, in this sense, are KRR's ad for a fictional job search website, or reguai's moody ad for fictional brand of candy "Kujira". To be honest, the quality of the featured work is pretty high in general, even when the meta conceit is just an excuse for drawing a pretty girl (ie エビフライ眼鏡P's sneaker ad).




Overall a very nice collection, not exceedingly tarnished by the Idolmaster connection. It also happens to be the second in a series, so I'll definitely have to get my hands on the next one.

"Useless beauty" by OKAMA

 I was really hoping to get more than one review in for November, especially since I have some backlog now, but technical difficulties prevented that. So, here we are in December...

But a good one it is. Some of you might still be familiar with the name OKAMA - he is not exclusively a dōjin artist, but has in fact authored a number of mainstream manga series, to some success and varying degrees of subjective quality. I read Cloth Road a long time ago and found it quite enjoyable as a take on the tournament-battle manga theme; I tried Mukan no Kishi and it was middling. 

He has a couple other minor series under his belt, but honestly with OKAMA story and worldbuilding is not where it's at. His strength, in my opinion, lies fair and square in the realm of character design, where he excels and then some. I think a cursory look at his personal site, linked above, will make that pretty clear.

What we have here today is Useless Beauty, a full-color collection dating all the way back to 2007 (17 years ago!), a bygone era in which OKAMA still dabbled almost entirely into pinups and, occasionally, ecchi and hentai. None of that here, as usual, but there are a couple slightly risqué phisiques here and there. 

What's really on display, even this early in OKAMA's career, is his eye for composition, color usage, and design. Sure, he almost entirely focuses on the usual bishoujo we have seen a thousand times before, but he does so with an imaginative flair we don't see everyday: his girls explore the Pole, commandeer ships in space, improvise tropical banquets and play with each other (more or less innocently) in a sort of virtual harem which puts on display, as the title suggests, the inherently useless - and therefore worthy of treasuring - quality of beauty. 

His eye for color is amazing and, frankly, very daring: there is something almost Murakami-like in the pop appeal of OKAMA's lime greens, neon pinks, often pitted against stark white. His figures, dramatically lithe yet always anatomically appropriate (occasionally breasts aside), bend and curve as if they were pieces of design themselves. JP pop art meets art nouveau.

OKAMA has published a couple other very good dōjinshi, some of which were translated ages ago by a long-dead scanlation group (shoutout to The Rabbit Reich): personally I recommend Fruit Girls and Okamarble. He also appeared in a couple issues of Murata's ROBOT. 

 

TRIP by Ukke

Autumn has come, and with it fog so thick you can cut it with a knife. It's also cold; like, real cold. We need some color around here...

    Just a few weeks ago I have reviewed  a dōjinshi by artist Ukke - in fact, a photobook /illustration hybrid, which left such a good impression I definitely had to snag something else by them with my next shipment. And so I got my dirty paws on Trip, this time a illustrations-only publication from 2008, entirely the work of Ukke themselves. Full color, A4, at 20 pages it's substantially smaller than Bouquet, but still an excellent addition to my collection.

    There is no specific theme, this time around. What we have is a collection of cutesy pinups, a 'best of the year' or so in the best dōjin tradition. One thing that immediately leaps to the eye is how masterful Ukke's handling of color contrasts is. As usual, my pics don't do it justice (for those who don't know, I'm philosophically against bending or unbinding stuff): each page is laden in vivid colors, complemented by a clean digital tract, and an eye for pattern design. This one is definitely a dōjinshi that would only make sense in full color. As mentioned, there is no specific theme, though Ukke seems to have a preference for almost-but-not-quite chibi bishoujo; no surprise, considering Bouquet started as a series of drawings, before becoming a picturebook. 

    If anything, its only fault is that it's a bit too short. Will definitely be on the hunt for more: in the meantime, if you want to see more of Ukke's work you can check out their Twitter or Instagram, where they post regular updates. 

ひつじ雲の帰り道 by Itodome

 Another purchase entirely made on the cover alone. I was entirely unfamiliar with Itodome (いとどめ), though there is some pretty good stuff to be found on their skeb profile.  It's a sort of slightly unpolished style, the anatomy is occasionally a bit shaky but I really dig the painterly, almost watercolor feel most of their (digital, I assume) works have. Subject is, for the most part, the usual fare; consisting of fanart, chicks, and... umm, planes? Cool stuff nonetheless.

ひつじ雲の帰り道  (literally, "the cumulonimbus' return home") is a nice little yuri manga from 2021's Winter Comiket, 24 pages in black and white - which, in this case, fits the overall sepia aesthetics of the cover art. The story is a well worn yuri trope: teacher and pupil fall in love, omg scandalous, they reunite once the student is no longer jailbait. We are fully within the canon, with no real risks taken with the story, but Itodome's drawing style, flowy as the genre commands (to the point of abstraction at times) really carries this one. Some facial expressions are a bit shaky at times, and it's not always super easy to read the action given how abstract the tract can get, but overall it's a style I still like a lot.

Not much more to say about this one. A nice little thing, definitely worth a look if you can snag a copy (good luck lol). 

"Frame" by Syo5

 Yeah, very few and sort of grungy pictures for this one. Reason: it's printed on a glossy paper that, for some reason, is very resistant to being photographed well; and, as you know, I'm vehemently against unbiding stuff. Weird, because the cover - and the cover only - is on matte paper... well, one more reason to actually check out the provided links, isn't it?

Frame is a short, full color, square format 2018 collection of works by illustrator / animatory syo5. Apparently, they're sort of a big deal, working mostly as a freelance artist for book covers, and as a director /animator for music videos. This last bit is actually unsurprising, as the illustrations collected in Frame have a cinematic quality, in the literal sense: we are often presented with a sequence of images, as if we were looking at still frames of an animation. Colors are rather somber in general, and the grain has a sort of faded quality, as if looking through a hazy glass -- a visual style you can see in their video works as well, see for example Minami's Ame Wo Matsu, for which Syo5 directed and animated. 

The dōjinshi is super short, 16 pages total, so one could argue there isn't much meat to it, considering that the collection lacks any sort of textual contextualization, from which I assume it to be a crop of personal works or practice pieces. Not the kind of stuff I usually enjoy - it's a bit too mainstream and polished for my taste - but, judging from their Twitter and Instagram following, I'd definitely in the minority. You might enjoy it! 

"NKR80 vol.2" by Narume

 While it might not be apparent from the stutt I review, I am a big fan of pixel art. I am, after all, also a Doom and Strife modder, and making custom graphics for those games pretty much means creating pixel art. It seems to me as if there are two main "school" of pixel art nowadays: one one hand, those who adopt the nostalgia angle, and lean more on the simple, blocky nature of the style; on the other, a lot of pixel artist who choose instead to focus on 'realism', so to speak, creating images that, while still generated pixel by pixel, could easily pass for non-pixel illustrations.

"NKR80 vol.2" (2019) is an illustration collection by pixel artist Narume, whose work for the most part falls into the latter category: their illustrations, usually bishoujo with a modern edge, reveal their pixely nature only upon close inspection, a fact that is well exemplified in this 16 pages, full color, square format collection: almost all images are presented along with a detail close up, which clearly show how Narume created them pixel by pixel. Neon tinges are predominant, leaning into that waporwave-ish aesthetics which seems to be very popular among modern pixel artists. Subjects, as mentioned, don't vary much, being all essentially pinups.

Upon comparison of the full image and the closeup, one can't help but marvel at Narume's artistry. The restrained color palette, and its greatly simplified monochrome backgrounds, really lends a vector-like clarity to each image, which greatly helps preserving definition and cleanliness. It's overall a very summery collection, basking in aqua tones to complement the abundant helpings of purple and pink neon lights. 

A short but pleasant treat, not much to say except enjoying Narume's skill with the pixels. They also have a pixel manga series, if you're interested, and a store full of cute stuff.