Heikinritsu's own site presents 平均律の《空》の本 (literally 'Heikinritsu's 'Sky' Book) as a 'collection of sky themed illustrations. Which is kind of true, I guess, as there is a sky in each full page (sometimes double spread) illustration. Still, as always, the real focus of the artist is on his trademark petite bishōjo, whom he places in a variety of landscape that always feature a sky, be it a summer blue one, or a fiery one at dusk.
Hailing from 2003, 平均律の《空》の本 is still an 'early work' of sorts, and displays some of the anatomical uncertainties I had seen, for example, in アルミ、クラフト、ポリプロピレン. Still, his eye for color and composition is amazing as always, and there are already hints of that attention towards abstraction that he will further develop in later dōjinshi. All in all a very nice, albeit short treat, and another one off the list of Heikinritsu back catalog.
My impulse purchase for the month was map03 by 丸紅アパートメンツ, an excellent artist I had recently spotted while browsing through Japan's side of Pinterest; I was particularly captivated by her amazing color illustrations of surreal, you guessed it, apartment scenes.
map03, however, is actually a fairly thick (66 pages) b&w manga, which ostensibly narrate the author's own trip to the city of Venice, and the happenings and mishaps therein. I'll be honest, the tract loses out a bit by the absence of color; nonetheless, the vistas, the paneling and, of course, the theme reminded me quite a bit of something like Aria, which it also resembles in the way it mixes travelogue with surreal imagery. To 丸紅's credit, I have to say that her grasp of anatomy and perspective is actually better than Amano's...
So, another small haul that got into my mitts two dōjinshi worthy of attention. Sadly, at least according to the artist's site, map03 is currently sold out, so managing to find a copy might be tricky.
