アルゴリズミック・ビューティ by 平均律 / HEIKINRITSU

Fun Fact: I really wanted to buy and review the latest Sayu Studio but, it turns out, it's cheese themed... and I hate cheese. Like, I can barely stand looking at melting cheese.

Sending manuscripts out, and applying for academic positions has pretty much turned me into the ultimate patient guy - waiting and waiting for the payload is second nature to me now. Which is all good, because it means the time between Heikinritsu dōjinshi flies by without me even noticing.

アルゴリズミック・ビューティ is the Comiket 91 (winter 2016) offering by what has become my favorite circle by far, 平均律 / HEIKINRITSU. I have reviewed a bunch of his previous publications, highlighting the way in which they do more than merely present us with cute moe girls, and instead manage to actually get a 'high concept' across; often, but not exclusively connected to some aspect of graphics and design practice. After all Robert Yamamoto, the man behind the circle, works as an art director in Tokyo. 

アルゴリズミック・ビューティ (B5, 28 pages, B&W aside for the cover) could be considered a direct continuation of 2014's パラメトリック, a dōjinshi which blended the typical moe chick fare with math-based procedural graphics. This new book picks up some of the algorithms already seen in the previous volume, but adds more procedural graphics and even some interesting concepts in the way the girls are drawn and portrayed. Overall, アルゴリズミック・ビューティ feels more thought out and complete than パラメトリック, and definitely beats the amazingly quirky but slightly thin ボドニとあかいユーロセル.

As before, I won't even pretend to understand the math behind the procedural graphics used by Heikinritsu - to his credit, he adds a short bibliography at the end of the work, so you can try the algorithms yourself if you feel like it. The black and white doesn't detract much from the illustrations, in fact it does the opposite, allowing us to fully focus on the forms and shapes the girls are designed within. As I mentioned, even the girls diversify a bit this time around: there is a procedurally star-generating magical girl (a theme Heikinritsu fully explored in one of the few dōjinshi of his I don't have), an Asuka, and a variety of ballerinas, and girls with teddy bears (!). 

There are a few very very very minor anatomy problems (feet are still drawn unconvincingly, which is surprising considering Heikinritsu draws hands very well) but, beyond this, it's very hard to find faults in アルゴリズミック・ビューティ. The only flaw I could point out, which is actually sort of a good point, is that the dōjinshi feels kind of short: it could have definitely used 4-5 more images, or maybe a couple color illustrations. In fact, I would love to see a Heikinritsu anthology, or a thicker sketchbook publication.

Overall, another Heikinritsu, another good purchase. While アルゴリズミック・ビューティ still hasn't replaced アレクサンダー・カルダーの恋人 as my favorite dōjinshi by this circle, it's a very strong offering, which makes me look forward even more to what he might cook up for Comiket 92. 

Small Haul - January

JLPT didn't go as good as I had hoped... and, a usual, it's the listening section's fault. Goal for December 2017 is to improve on that side. Any pointers? I had good past experiences with a few online language exchanges platforms, otherwise I might have to resort to the good ol' pen pal system...

I've also been playing some Factorio. Not my kind of game, I'm more of a mindless MMO kind of guy, but one of the game's merit is that, for the first time since high school, I had to use equations.

Small haul for January, mostly to justify the shipping expense of Heikinritsu's new thingy, アルゴリズミック・ビューティ. So far it really feels like a パラメトリック part two, which is great as the latter was one of my favorite experiments from the circle. It also means more math talk that will simply fly over my head, but cute girls will more than make up for that.

On the right is 1000elegy 100wonders syllabus 千変挽歌百不思議 導入手引, a... very strange sort of fictional syllabus for a Battle Royale style school? lots of collage-y pages and walls of text which, fortunately, don't seem to be too far beyond my grasp. On the left, 武蔵野茶房 総集編 2, a sparse manga which, at a glance, looks like something Hitoshi Ashinano would have written.

First review will be, of course, Heikiritsu's, then followed by the others. Good stuff.

中根浩一 写真作品集 by SELFISH GENE

Winter is in full swing, and it seems as if it's snowing all over the place in Italy. All over the place but here, that is. Gone the beautiful foggy season, all we're left with is the worst part of winter. I will never move to the seaside soon enough :S

In spite of very little photographic material that I'll be able to provide for this dōjinshi (there is nothing online and I'm not going to compromise my copy's spine just to take a few pics), it felt as if I just had to write a brief review of 中根浩一 写真作品集: not only because SELFISH GENE is one of my favorite inactive circles, but also because of a rather sad particularity: it's the first commemorative dōjinshi I have come across. By commemorative, I mean featuring the work of someone who has passed away.

Kouichi Nakane (1975 -2001) seems to have been a good friend of SELFISH GENE's Fujikura Kazune, and shared with them a passion for photography. The 中根浩一 写真作品集 collection is split in two parts: a first half is made up of Fujikura's own works, some of them unedited versions of pics that already appeared on Libération from Fujikura, while the second part is dedicated to the photography work of Nakane, which shares some elements in common but also differs from Fujikura's in style and subject matter. There is also a DVD which, unfortunately, did not manage to survive thirteen-odd years of bad storage. Such a shame :S

The book is a nice and thick 86 pages in full color, very well designed and solidly bound aside for the DVD mishap. The part dedicated to Fujikura contains very little text, and focuses instead on the pictures themselves: mostly sunshaft-filled shots of suburban landscapes and people closeups, something Inio Asano would do if he photographed instead of drawing manga. Nakane's side is a bit thicker with words, giving some background on him, his interests and the memories he left behind for Fujikura and other close friends. Nakane's work is very similar to Fujikura's, and the book includes some very moving pics of both of them frolicking in suburbia with friends.

While, technically speaking, both photographers are fairly skilled - at least as far as a photography ignoramus like me could tell - I am not sure how I feel about the theme of the book's second part: I have always felt very ambivalent toward memorials, as they often ride a thin line between healing remembrance and sappy sentimentalism. Still, I can't help by appreciate this tribute of a photographer to another photographer  and friend. As far as I could tell using my still very shaky Japanese knowledge, the tribute didn't seem overdone or too congratulatory.

I'm now missing a single SELFISH GENE dōjinshi, a very slim one so I'm not entirely sure whether I'll purchase it. Next week, however, the new Heikinritsu is coming in...