PRETTIES by TIES

Sorry for the lack of pics but, as you know, I don't scan my dōjinshi, cell phone pics just look like crap, and this one is so old there is little to nothing available online. Imagine a lot of girls dressed up as Utena.

Generally speaking, I'm not a fan of cosplay: it seems to me as if most, actually all outfits from the 2d world hardly translate into the third dimension, and usually end up having that excessively slick, plastic-like appearance that even the most expensive cosplay simply can't shake off. It seems to me just an excessively expensive hobby with very little payoff.

One thing I do like, however, are photo dōjinshi; especially those that, by design or otherwise, come across as quirky and offbeat. And another thing I do like is fairly old dōjinshi - as in, published at least fifteen years ago. If those two are to meet in a single publication, I could probably overlook that fact that I don't give a damn about the cosplay aspect, right?

And so I put my grubby paws on PRETTIES 4, a dōjinshi cosplay photobook dating winter 1999 (!). 56 pages, glossy paper and glued binding, but mostly B&W (which is just as well, since from what I could glance most of these outfits could drive you insane / colorblind by exposure). Circle goes under the TIES name, which seems to include photographers 露崎せいら (Tsuyusaki Seira) and 藤乃れん (Tōno Ren). I say seems, because this publication is prehistoric by ephemera / vanity publishing standards, so I could find very little info: the web site the back copy provides is dead and buried, and Seira ad Ren's online presences haven't been updated in a while (decades).

The publication includes a diverse variety of cosplay, both when it comes to characters chosen (Utena and ToHeart are however very prominent) and models, who are for the most part... homely. One of the things that struck me, and that set PRETTIES 4 apart from the cosplay photography I am used to, is that it seems to show a (probably imaginary) older era in which cosplay wasn't about how spotless your face looked, or how much cleavage you revealed: most of the featured models are flat as boards, facially unattractive and, in some backstage pics, caught with no make-up on.

The costumes are well crafted and the locales are urban but sometimes exotic (there are a few pics that seem to be shot in Italy!), but an 'amateurish' (in the best possible sense) aura of earnstness comes across through the weird angles, awkward poses and excessive amount of smiles - a refreshing change from the costipated expressions that seem to be the norm in today's cosplay photography. There are also a myriad English typos too, which adds to the charm.

I also could find zilch on any of the models featured, mostly because they go by nicknames so commonplace (Riku, Noin, etc) it's basically impossible to filter results. It also doesn't help that, as PRETTIES date back to 1999, most models are now probably deep into careers and raising families, rather than cosplay. Bonus points for one of the models going by the handle 'Hussy', which I found quite funny.

Honestly, I'm not sure how many copies of this thing might still be floating around, so no comment on availability. Still, PRETTIES 4 (and, I assume, its three predecessors) are a nice window into what cosplay used to be, before exposure and WCS came along.

アルミ、クラフト、ポリプロピレン by 平均律

A few unexpected expenses (adoption of another sighthound! pics and dedicated post coming soon) forced me to skip a month's haul, holding back reviews a bit - not because I have ran out of back catalog, but because the items from my collection that I left out deserve lenghty posts I don't have sufficient time to produce at the moment. This month's haul, however, came in this morning and I can say it was one of the most satisfying so far - even blind purchases have been a resounding success.

Fragment by Shirakaba Toshiharu is a particularly meaty offering, it almost feels like a real sketchbook thanks to the thick, brown paper. 花と砂糖と君が好き is the first volume of a really charming series, of which I own three so far; a review will be coming in the near future. Finally, Pretties is a quirky photobook / cosplay magazine - dōjinshi from... 1999. Jeez, feels like a century ago. I think it was somewhere around that year though that I put my mitts on Rozen Maiden and began my tragic descent into otakudom.

The main piece is, however, a dōjinshi from one of my favorite circles, which I have reviewed before: I snagged a copy of アルミ、クラフト、ポリプロピレン by the always amazing 平均律. This is an old one: not so much as far as year of publication (2004), but within the circle's bibliography: it's so relatively ancient it's only barely listed on the circle's page, no preview available. The site dubs it as a MUJI-themed book: MUJI is a Japanese brand of no-brand house good /stationery, which really seems like the oddball theme that would fall right into Heikinritsu's ballpark. After all, other dōjinshi from the circle dealt with colored cel tape and moefied typesets...

アルミ、クラフト、ポリプロピレン  is 24 pages, B&W with a color cover, in the usual thick, high quality paper used for most of the circle's publications. It's also a fairly wordy dōjinshi, where illustrations usually share the page with blocks of fairly difficult text (which, I admit, I can barely parse). While the main theme is household items, and most of the illustration feature Heikinritsu's signature petite girls interacting with objects such as wardrobes, couches, stationary and desks, there is also the circle's typical emphasis on fashion: his girls are always donned in deliciously abstract fashion, including transparent boots and LBD of various cuts and lenghts. Did I mention he made a dōjinshi about that too?

The usual Heikinritsu caveats apply: if you're looking for sleek artwork in the vein of Senmu or anything reviewed on Nattoli, you will be disappointed: part of the charm of Heikinritsu's illustrations is that they have a raw, almost sketchy quality to them, and the moe aspect never overshadows the theme - also, as I mentioned, this is a fairly early work, and sometimes it shows - especially when it comes to anatomy and proportions. Not to say that the drawing style lacks charm, quite the opposite; what's important is that, beyond being mere sketches, the illustrations are functional to the dōjinshi's theme. And they're still pretty damn moe regardless.

Another Heikinritsu work I got my hands on, another purchase that left me more than satisfied. I am nearing to completing his bibliogaphy, but I'm still missing that Hatsune Miku thing he did a while ago... one day...