NOCTURNE by Nishimata Aoi

The dōjinshi world is pretty much predicated on minimal budgets. Being (in most cases) an amateur and informal kind of publication, it's not unusual for a colorful, high production cover to hide only a few pages of black and white sketches. I no longer get mad about this. I have simply accepted it's part of the medium; it is, however, a real pleasure when a 'look at that pretty cover' impulse purchase nets me something that actually has a *higher* production value than the average dōjinshi, for the same price. One of my best purchses in this sense was 西又葵 (Nishimata Aoi)'s Nocturne - a tome that really deserves the 'artbook' tag, even though I shelled the same price for it as I did for many 12-pages booklets.

Not my pic, but it gives a nice idea of the package

The main piece is a thick, sturdy 116-pages artbook: it's full color, and features mostly one page and two page spreads of Nishimata Aoi's artworks, with a whole section dedicated to her character design for Shuffle! (Navel). The hardcover is nice and solid, and it comes with a protective plastic case (top left in the pic). A few extra goods were thrown in: one of those fun anime phone cards that can be often bought and traded at cons (I wish I could start a collection of those, but must dōjin); a very high quality poster print of the cover illustration; and a shitajiki also featuring the cover image. The poster is now hanging on my bedroom's wall, mostly acting as chick repellent yet boosting my otaku cred off the charts. Whee.

One of my favorite pics from the arbook

Aoi Nishimata is not an artist I would usually go for: she is fairly established, has done loads of mainstream work and her illustrations don't have that edgy, artsy cred a stuck up a-hole like me thrives upon. I mean, I am an Abyukyo fan. Still, she has published (and, apparently, still publishes) loads of dōjin work through her JOKER TYPE vanity circle, usually artbooks packed with extra goods as with Nocturne. Unfortunately, they usually command higher prices than what I had to shell for this lucky buy, so I don't see myself acquiring any more of hers. She has also illustrated, and even written a few light novels apparently... but me and LNs are a whole different can of worms we'll open some other time.