Girl Meets Chair by KJ Lab

I've remarked in the past how much I enjoy dōjinshi with a theme, rather than a parody, behind them. There is something that speaks of commitment behind the work of circles such as Heikinritsu, or dōjinshi like Chocolate Apple: the strong vibe that there is a concept, a design behind their ongoing work that will reward following up. It doesn't rely on ongoing narratives and plots (which usually I find don't work in the dōjin format), but also provides stronger cohesion than your average collection of illustrations (reviews of which, by the way, are in the pipeline - got a few pretty good ones last month).

Since I also enjoy bizarre anthropomorphizations, purchasing a copy of KJ Lab's Girl Meets Chair was pretty much a clinched deal. Now, when it comes to the circle's history, facts are a bit sketchy, as searching for the circle's name or artist (ケイジェー) brings up a clearly unrelated outfit (still worth a peek though). Their first book dates from late 2017, making them a fairly new circle, and their latest dates late 2018. As usual, one can't exclude that this Kj Lab circle and the one above are the same, with the usual 'wipe the past' coat applied, but I remain unconvinced.

Girl Meets Chair, as the title suggests, is a collection of illustrations featuring moe anthropomorphizations of... chairs. Fifteen examples of design chairs through the years, from Hans Wegner's Y Chair, to Eames' Side Shell Chair, is paired with a young girl whose clothes and color scheme emulates the piece of furniture's. And so, Hansen's Ant Chair has a girl, dressed in boy scout clothes, trying to save such chair from a line of ants; and Droog's Tree Trunk Bench has a scantily clad girl playing the dryad while sitting on the grossly overpriced piece of wood. The charm is, of course, in the strange and endearing ways by which ケイジェー manages to tie together the human figure and the furniture, playing each one with and against the other.

Graphically, the work is top notch: the artist clearly knows how to play with shape, layout, and especially color: complementary hues are often used, giving the illlustrations a strong and vivid vibe. The girls themselves are fairly cutesy moe, there are a couple anatomical inconsistencies but nothing excessive.

Definitely a nice little work from a circle worth keeping an eye on... assuming it still exists.