Hanamaru Color Illustrations

Title: Hanamaru
タイトル: はなまる
Release Date: 12/31/2009
Pages: 24

Reading Time: 2 minutes

I was really excited to see the new work from Aka Ringo because of the preview images for Hanamaru and the previous AZ + PLAY winter Comiket publication, 0 [LOVE]. So the bar was set a little too high and Hanamaru fell short.

This 24 page, staple-bound publication is full color. But there really aren’t a lot of illustrations. Aka Ringo likes to have an illustration, and then a “process” page, which was also present in 0 [LOVE]. Additionally, the cover art work of Flandre Scarlet appears again inside the doujinshi. So this leaves us with technically six illustrations in a 24-page book.

It’s strange but, if it had been a 12-page book with only six illustrations, I wouldn’t have had such a negative reaction. I would have expected it.

The last few pages cover web arts and other publications, along with a bit from the artist. I can’t recommend this, but maybe these illustrations will re-appear in a compilation someday.