RAMBLE by 田中寛崇

After last time's review of an actual manga - a very good one, actually, and soon to be the first full manga volume I read in Japanese! - we are back to dōjinshi, and an illustration one to boot. They're actually my favorite kind of dōjin work, the one that in my eye distances itself the most from official manga. Sadly a *lot* of contemporary dōjinshi really obsess over the hyper-polished shōjo thing, which I'm not really against but feel it's starting to be a bit overdone. So, my best purchases happen to be those that really channel a, umm, 'alternative' vibe we could say? A little example of this is one of my most recent purchases, RAMBLE by Hirotaka Tanaka.

It's a very slim booklet, A5 format and barely 16 pages, but full color - and what color! Tanaka's subject are young women, but his visual style leaves no room for googly eyes, frills, or beachside parties. His illustrations take the subject as a mere pretext for vibrant, acid colored explorations of space, depth, and contrast. His young women, drawn in a simple yet realistic style by Japanese dōjinshi standards, are pitted against mostly industrial backgrounds, enviroments the artists simplifies to their essential lines and spaces. Color, the real strength of these illustrations, foregoes all pretenses of realism, focuing instead on the interplay between complementary and constrasting hues, with a bias towards the clash between blue, and warm tints in the yellow spectrum.

So yes, another interesting purchase from an artist I'll be keeping an eye on. RAMBLE is actually a few years old (2015) and, according to a card that came with it, was a companion to a real-life exhibition, Getting Better, that took place at Fewmany, some sort of arts and crafts space in the heart of Tokyo.