Aaand, this time around we're reviewing a nice, simple illustration dōjinshi, no fancy concept or postmodern deconstruction of the medium. Recur is a full-color, 21 pages illustration work by AsakuraG+, a circle founded in 2006 that is still quite active and pumps out an average of one dōjinshi per year, mostly dedicated to the Touhou franchise.
The artbook in question, from 2012, is an entirely original work, a sort of 'visual book' detailing, through large-sized illustrations and caption, the journey of a girl 'towards corruption'. She moves through a series of chromatically-themed, beautiful two page spreads that skillfully combine computer graphics with drawings, meeting on her way a bony psychopomp who leads her... back to our world? was it a dream all along?
The accent here is definitely on the production values: the colorful, glossy images really capture snapshots from a dream-like world, capturing well themes of ice, forest and wastelands. The girl protagonist, competently portrayed save a few minor inaccuracies, blends in with the landscapes rather than stand out, contributing to the overall tableau-like feeling of the illustrations. The book is nicely capstoned by a few pin-ups portraying the protagonist and the other characters in different outfits, suggesting that the young girl might actually be a recurring character - from what I could tell, she is in fact featured in a few of AsakuraG+'s other collections.
Overall a nice find, not too heavy on story but particularly stylish on the visual side of things - definitely enoug to make me want to seek more work from the author. In case you want more info, their site is awfully lacking updates, but they seem to be quite active on Twitter.
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