CRYSTAL SHAPE by VV.AA.

One of the things that surprised me the most when I first began exploring the wonderful world of dōjin circles, was how often the second term turned out to be a misnomer. A circle implies more than one person taking part, so I imagined that most dōjin circles would work like I saw on Otaku No Video or Genshiken: a bunch of people getting together to pump out more or less amazing stuff.
Surprise surprise, that seems to be more the exception than the rule: almost all of the dōjinshi I own are produced by so-called kojin sākuru (個人サークル) - aka, circles made up of a single person. So, basically, a pen name, or a vanity label. Must come handy when they go mainstream and decide to baleet everything off the face of the Internet.

While circles actually made of more than one person might be getting more rare, one common occurrence I found is a bunch of artist collaborating together by piecing their own sections for a one-off dōjinshi, using their own personal or circles' names. Usually but not always they would heavily feature someone already established, with a few more or less unknown trailing behind. These kinds of buys have been very hit and miss: some, like Fossil Antique's amplifier, left a lot to be desired; others, like the anthology(?) I'll be reviewing today, actually got me to know a few very good artists I wasn't aware of previously.

Crystal Shape  (2009) was, by non limited edition dōjinshi  standards, a fairly expensive purchase ( I think I shelled the equivalent of $25), and one that I pretty much did on タカハシヒロユキ (Takahashi Hiroyuki)'s name alone. A household figure in Japan's alternative culture scene, Takahashi is now a fairly well known figure among superflat and Mood Shōjo aficionados, mostly thanks to a visually stunning but very generic-feeling collaboration with Crunchyroll which mostly seems to have spawned merchandise and vapor.

Regardless, one thing I appreciate is that, while Takahashi vastly overshadows the others in terms of notoriety, her art does not take the lion's share of this fifty pages, large format, full color anthology - she gets only one page more than the rest. Each artist, with few exceptions, has been given four pages in total, paired two by two. For each 'pair', on one page the artist presents a themed character design, which then has a little manga built around them on the second page. So, two character designs and two short stories to each artist.The theme of Crystal Shape seems to be 'elements', understood in a far wider sense than even Eastern cosmology makes allowance for: we have 'earth', 'fire' and 'water', but also 'poison' and 'crystal' - not elements in any system I am aware of. Not a big deal, as what matters is that, for the most part, the artists actually do take the theme into account, and we'd probably be able to tell which element is represented at a glance in most cases.

First comes コバヤシ・ヒロト (Kobayashi Hiroto), whose main claim to fame seems to be the zillion homonyms he sports: I wasn't able to find a blog, nor a Pixiv of this artist, and the web site given at the end of the book is defunct. He (I assume) chose the 'crystal' and 'earth' themes, which are developed in a somewhat uninspired way: for some reason a character centered around crystals dresses like a Playboy centerfold and features bunny ears, and the 'earth' character is a slender and windswept looking shōjo I wouldn't really associate with dirt, dust and the underground. The manga, unfortunately, isn't that great either, well colored but really hastily drawn. Not the best start.

Fortunately, we pick up pace with おきの (Okino), who actually has a Pixiv page with some very high quality work. Their chosen theme are 'fire' and 'ice', both executed with a color-filled bravado that left me literally speechless: their character designs are dynamic and modern while very Edo-looking; and their manga pages actually do manage to tell a cute, short story in a mere handful of frames. Bold lines, top notch, coloring, definitely the highlight of the dōjinshi.

 

 

Next is GENk, who has a... let's say, peculiar style. I'm not really a fan per se but, if you're the kind of Goth soul that sighs at the mere sight of a Michael Hussar, you're going to love the living crap out of it. Themes are 'water' (actually blood) and 'poison'. While, as I said, this is not really my cup of tea, I must admit the character designs are fairly compelling and well thought out. There surely is skill in here. The accompanying manga are also well made and, at least in one case, grimly funny.

Because we all love exploding wabbits.

For bonus points, an unrelated thing by JENk I actually like. There's also some Idolmaster...
 

Aaand next is Keypot, another very highly skilled moe craftsman whose style is, however, a tad too generic for my taste - or maybe the problem is that, after JENk, pretty much everything feels generic. Themes are 'ice' and 'electricity', both embodied by scantly clad Amazons whose underwear just seem to never cover enough skin - bonus points for addressing the issue in one of the manga. Generic designs aside, Keypot clearly has the chops and is not afraid to display them: the coloring is fresh and bold, if a bit flat, and the layout of the manga pages is interestingly daring.

 

 Also, lovely Engrish. Moving on. Next is おぐち (Oguchi), another skilled artist that seems to have fallen off the face of the planet, at least under this name. Some great art in this Pixiv, check it out. The work on parade inside Crystal Shape is equally good: themes are 'fire' and 'ice', represented by two girls and their elemental - funny enough, a cold elemental for the fire chick, and the other way round. Oguchi has a peculiar sense for depth and shading that the other artists' often supermodern anime sensibilities do not explore: both the character design pages and the manga make ample use of abstraction and negative space in order to create flow and narration, to great effect. Another lighlight of the dōjinshi.

UCMM is next, marking yet another shift in style - unlike Oguchi's gritty and grainy textures, UCMM's have the sleek, plastic-like features of a hypermodern graffiti. Maybe a bit too hypermodern for my taste but, once again, the quality is undeniable: following the themes of 'electricity' and 'poison' , his character designs are superdeformed and cute, especially the Thunder-Lightning sibling pair. It was just around this point in Crystal Shape that I realized, overall, what a great job the artists did in these one-page manga: most of the times they change a merely 'cool' design into an actual character, that I could totally see animated, with a backstory added and all that. Sign me up for the 'Adventures of the Storm Siblings'.

はっち is next, another artist I couldn't find a iota about - no Pixiv (aside from what I really hope is a homonym), website deader than dead, etc etc. Such a shame, as this one's style is the kind of stuff I would have snobishly disparaged a while ago, and that I absolutely love now. Very deformed, colorful and poppy, visually it's probably the closest to Takahashi's own work, less elaborate but definitely more 'fun', if you get what I mean. A native American-looking wind goddess and a lightning boy make a cute pair with a cute crush, another set of characters I could totally see star in their own manga or web anime series.

No web images make it very hard to link stuff. No, I don't scan my collection.

 

Hakus, now mysteriously called Siana, is probably the one taking the most liberty with the chosen themes: both his 'fire' and 'earth' depictions are fairly standard moe-looking miko with a very slight furry undertone, the latter being the superior one both as a design, and as far as the associated manga page goes. Hakus has a very idiosyncratic style, especially when it comes to soft edges and a relatively subdued palette; so yes, kind of a shame he didn't try to go the extra mile and come up with more original character designs.

Then it's the turn of Takashi Okazaki this FooRider guy; who, at least judging from his web site, does some very good, hip hop / graffiti inspired visual and musical work, the kind of stuff that is actually popular with reason. Kind of a shame, then, that his designs are very uninspired and derivative, not to mention completely unrelated to the themes of 'wind' and 'earth': two generic Afro Samurai dudes who strike a cool pose on one page and kill some dudes on the next one. Definitely not his best work, by far. So, instead of an image, you get a link to his gallery on Facebook.

Drumrolls, aaaand... it's Takahashi's turn! What, no drumrolls? for shame. Then again, don't get me wrong, I love Hiroyuki Takahashi to a fault but, their characters for Crystal Shape are... kind of underwhelming. Themes are 'poison', 'wind' and an extra illustration for 'ice', but the concept are only vaguely followed. I found the 'poison' character the most successful (the kind of visually elaborate, violently colored stuff Takahashi does so well) and the 'wind' one the least (two horned schoolgirls doing pilates? no thanks). I appreciate the humility of putting themselves last but, to be honest, Takahashi's work within Crystal Shape is mid-tier, and pales in comparison to Okino's or Oguchi's. It's also quite inferior to Takahashi's own later and livelier characters, finally rid of the 'dead eye' expression as visible below.

Taking care of the bonus track is v8, who offers three colorful character designs but apparently can't be bothered to keep a Pixiv page or a website afloat. Am I the only one who finds really enraging how some awesome artists simply fall of the face of the earth for no discernible reason? All I could find was a bunch of Danbooru pics and a few character designs for Atlus' Eternal Poison.

So you can have v8's cropped hear angel. Pretty.

 

 Overall a very good dōjinshi, which manages to be much more than a mere star vehicle for Hiroyuki Takahashi. There is also a volume 2, which seems to have a 'killer' or 'hitman' theme - I might get around to it if only because it seems to feature KYAN-DOG, which I absolutely love.
As a little cherry topping the review, a YouTube ad for the dōjinshi...