I've been eyeing for a while Asahiro, active under the circle name ALGL, and I decided to purchase a random dōjinshi as a sort of sampler - I do that often, usually going for the cheapest one, and then branch out if I happen to like what I see. This one is titled ALGL - Score and it's a few years old, 2015. A4 format, full color, wery well bound. From what I understand, it acts as a sort of capstone, or 'issue 0' for a dōjinshi series, which is now up to issue 6 or 7. While later issues, from what I could gather from the artist's web site, actually have an ongoing plot involving pirates and opera (!), ALGL - Score acts as more of an intro / sampler, focusing on pinup illustrations of the various characters that appear in later 'issues'.
Visually, well... I've never quite seen anything like it. Asahiro has a very distinctive style, very painterly, super elaborate, and which reminds me more of some Western art than animanga per se - at times, in the wireframe, stylized figures I could see echoes of Ueda Hajime, though I'm really clutching at straws to find a comparison. There is such a fantastic use of shadows and color, ranging from the muted to the vivid, that each illustration really comes to life as a complete, stand-alone art piece. It's actually one of the few dōjin outputs I've come across lately that I can really classify as 'professional-level polished'.
A first part of ALGL - Score is full page illustrations of the main characters - Rolando, who in spite of the name seems to actually be female, and also an orchestra conductor, and a pirate; Mirela, a princess of sorts; and a whole cohort of characters with Spanish-sounding names, though I'm not sure how Spain-influenced the actual series is - not much, from what I could tell. It will probably become clearer as I work through subsequent issues. A second section introduces, less in depth, the whole cast that is still to appear. A final section has some average, forgettable fan art.
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| This is NOT such fanart. |
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