CAFELOG R3 by Bricologic

Here is another one from an artist I have stalked on Pixiv and Twitter for quite a while...

マツダ is one of Pixiv's scores of artists who seem to have carved a career for themselves in the production of, I'm sorry to say, rather generic fantasy artwork for J-card cames and such. A few years back, however, they made the rounds in the dōjin scene under the name Bricologic, with something much more to my taste - slice of life coffe shop scenes.

Yeah... the one I got my hands on is titled Cafelog R3 (2012), and it's actually an anthology that features choice cuts from two previous dōjinshi, Cafelog R and Cafelog R2. As you might have noticed I am a sucker for meaty page counts, which are hard to come by in the self-published world; and, considering this collection of two previous works is a mere 40 b&w pages, and apparently includes everything the Bricologic name has ever produced, well... not much of a chance to dig deeper into this circle's production, I guess.

This one collection, however, is one of the most visually pleasing I purchased in quite a while, displaying a distinctive visual style which, shamefully, seems to have been noticeable watered down in Matsuda's recent commercial work. As often happens with dōjinshi, the premises are barebone: a quartet of OCs, who do nothing but drink coffee at a coffee shop, all the time. Yup, every single illustration in Cafelog R3 is the blonde protagonist sitting at a table, sipping coffee. She might have an ornery suitor or a waitress friends, but it doesn't matter much - here, the main draw is Matsuda's amazing art style, far more reminescent of some more recent strands of European comics, than the standard, goggly-eyed Japanese fare. Backgrounds are painstakingly rendered, the character's poses are dynamic and natural, and the coloring job (unfortunately visible only on the cover) is top notch.

So yeah, another nice little discovery, and another well that has run dry long before such discovery. You can see more of Matsuda's recent work on their Tumblr.

Reblog: Classic Creep Capers (ho-lingnojikenbo)

Reblogging this interesting article from Ho-Ling Wong's excellent mystery blog, as it deals with an interesting confluence of Japanese mistery and  dōjin publication. Nemoto Shou's Kaiki Tantei is not exactly my cup of tea, so it's unlikely I'd review it anytime soon, but a few of the volumes are apparently available as e-books now, so it might be worth it to check out if you don't mind bizarre mysteries, and somewhat simpler art styles.

灰景少女 社 by 高市

Rain and 20 degrees in July. Bizarre. And I still have to water the plants...

One little thing I included in my latest haul is an illustration dōjinshi by 高市, which I discovered first through Twitter's suggestions while aimlessly browsing a while ago. While the somewhat uncomplex drawing style wasn't exactly my cup of tea (though it reminded me a bit of みなはむ, which I actually really like), I was surprised by the vivid colors and... let's say handmade charm of their illustrations. Since most of their stuff was like 3 euros on Mandarake I figured 'why not?', and picked up a copy of their art collection titled 灰景少女 社.

Published in 2015, full color and in horizontal format, it's apparently one volume in a series, focusing on a handful of 高市's original characters. It's an imaginary travelogue of sorts as, and while the artist's three girls characters are clearly your usual moe chicks who are the standard in the dōjin world, the backgrounds seem to be reproductions of some place... which I think might be imaginary, as 青葉鉱撰 train line doesn't bring up any relevant result. There is even a little map included, but I couldn't find a match on Japan's coastline. If anyone knows better, please feel free to correct me.

Now, as I mentioned, the three female travellers that populate 高市's world are fairly standard - short haired one, long haired one, and a tanned plus light hair one who gets extra point because it just happens to be my thing. They are often portrayed in a very stylized manner, with little chiaroscuro and detail. The backgrounds, on the other hand, are very elaborate and accurately executed in what's either pastel / watercolor, or an extremely convincing digital imitation of them. There is a degree of fantasy to them (Venezia-style canals surrounded by palaces, waterway trams that look just like streetcars) which leads credence to my idea that the setting is imaginary, but again, I might be wrong. One plus is that the illustrations are full color, and the horizontal format really allows the artist not to let any space go to waste, when depicting landscapes. A minus is that, as it often happens with illustration dōjinshi, it's a bit on the short side, clocking in at 20 pages.

Overall, a worthy purchase, nothing groundshaking but still a dōjin artist to keep an eye on. 

ESCAPISM by Nanakawa

So, now that I finally found a suppy of dōjinshi at near-Japanese prices (one of the big surprises when I was over there, was how cheap dōjinshi actually are - rarely more than 4-5 euros) reviews should come out at a much steadier pace.

One very good find was this collection by ナナカワ of the circle Encount, titled ESCAPISM. It's from 2017, full color (and what color! one of he best printjobs I've seen in quite a while), 4A size. I was familiar through Twitter with this circle, which actually seems to be made up of a few different artists taking turns with releases - in this case, Nanakawa.

This dōjinshi has actually a lot of similarities with another one I reviewed a little while ago, RAMBLE by 田中寛崇: both feature solitary bishōjo within natural and urban environments, with a focus on vivid and, often, pleasantly clashing color palettes. Nanakawa is, perhaps, a bit on the less stylized end of things: volumes, lights, and shadows are always properly rendered, and great care is put into rendering environments and architecture. A level of abstraction is, however, is provided by the contrast between warm, summery colors, and sudden fields of cool blues and greens that is the centerpiece of almost every illustration. There is no text accompanying the illustrations: titles (already a rarity in the dōjin world, actually) and social contacts are all we have.

A very good collection of illustrations, nothing groundbreaking thematically but a very nice display of mastery over color. Nothing seems to have come out in 2018 by Nanakawa dōjin-wise yet (seems to be very active in live painting and apparel areas), though I'd definitely buy a follow up to ESCAPISM.

ひと、さらう風の by キトス / 鉄塔惑星 by Strawberry*kick / よしづきくみち短編集君と僕のアシアト by よしづきくみち

Top spots on my current wishlist: something by Kamo (which I've been wanting for a while) and some more Abyukyo. I have also begun using Mandarake for shopping, which has been an... interesting experience. Nothing wrong on the shop's side of things (by the way, save yourself a headache and order only from their Sahra shop), but my courier charged me 21 euros in custom fees, waited for me to pay them, then canceled them and made me wait weeks for a refund. What gives...

Anyway... while waiting for my latest shipment, I figured I'd keep this blog (barely) alive with a little review roundup of things that are either so flimsy page count-wise, or so obscure they probably don't need their own post. Two of them were random purchases, while another was something I had my eyes on for a while.

Sorry, but this is all you get. No pics online and I'm
still too afraid to scan my stuff...

So, first in line is ひと、さらう風の by キトス (2011), one of those dōjinshi I bought on their striking cover alone. I'm a sucker for subdued palettes and oil pastels aesthetics, not to mention the slice of life, Urushibara vibe the cover channeled. The joy and pain of dōjinshi is, of course, that most online shops won't let you see any of the inner pages, which can lead to some interesting surprises. Who could have guessed that, behind the peaceful cover, was a depressing story of wartime murder, drawn in a a visually aggressive style that wouldn't be out of place in ガロ? A woman fighter tries to save a child; yet, her gentleness is not repaid in kind, and the violence of war eventually has its way.
Overall, I was pleasantly surprised, as you don't often see dōjinshi tackling themes beyond cute chicks and summer days, and it's nice that someone still feels the urge to push the envelope a bit content-wise.

Moving on, 鉄塔惑星 by Strawberry*kick (2014). Another one I bought just for the cover, but at least this time I had a few pics of inner pages to justify my purchase. Another thing I've always been a sucker for are slice of life stories set in bizarre, contrieved worlds - and it doesn't get any more bizarre and contrived than a world where people live on power lines, and move from one pole to the other on wind bicycles. The story.... well, there really isn't one. Two young girls meet up, while their bikes are taken care of by a repair shop in the sky. Yeah. The visual style, on the other hand, is pretty impressive, cutesy but with a hand-drawn edge that makes it pleasantly busy, without feeling too hasty, or too alternative for its own good.

My copy is the dōjin one, and lacks all that YJC coterie.

Then, rounding up, a name some might actually be familiar with. よしづきくみち is a fairly well known mangaka in the West, as her manga have been both translated, and adapted as anime. Like often happens with people who eventually make the switch to commercial, she actually had her start (and still dabbles) in dōjinshi, including a hilarious split with とよ田みのる I plan on buying someday. The one I got, よしづきくみち短編集君と僕のアシアト , is a more mundane collection of short stories in the vein of her commercial output - slightly sappy, feelgood slice of life where friends discover friendship, young lovers discover love, and so on. As I'm faster and faster gravitating towards the more bizarre edge of dōjin, maybe this kind of stuff is just starting to feel a bit unadventurous. Visually, of course, it's Yoshizuki all the way: polished, very clean lines, with a strong 'commercial' feel to it - in a good way, fortunately. If you want to snag a copy, you're in luck: from what I could gather, this was also eventually reprinted as a digital release by Jump Comics.

So yes, some good stuff to fill in the blanks before the next haul. As always, feel free to friend me on Twitter, where I do most of my stuff nowadays.