CIRCUS 10th Visual Album

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The first thing I thought upon opening up CIRCUS 10th Visual Album was… MOONSTONE Complete Illustrations. It’s amazing how completely similar the two books are, right down to page layouts and section headings. Both books were originally slated to release in December, but in the end only MOONSTONE met that deadline.

CIRCUS 10th Visual Album uses a very high print quality with no visible DPI and only light noise. That is no small feat for a 240-page A4 size book. But that also accounts for the above average price for the art book of ￥3780. The other packaging bonuses include an open-box slip cover and a DVD-ROM with demo movies and audio interviews.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of the illustrations are from the D.C. Da Capo series of games. The first section in the book is titled “Part 01 Circus Best Illustrations“. It’s all official illustrations and publicity art work. This section runs from pages 5 through 106, with about 54 of those pages featuring D.C. Da Capo promotional art work.

Other games in the section include Infantaria, Suika, Valkyrie Complex, Eternal Fantasy, Homemaid Sweets, and Saishuu Shiken Kujira. For the most part, these series don’t get more than a few pages. The exceptions are Eternal Fantasy, Saishuu Shiken Kujira, and Valkyrie Complex. You’ll also notice many of the pages have tiled images, and overall there are few full page images in the book. However, it’s not as bad as it usually is. The details stay preserved because of the high quality printing.

The second part of CIRCUS 10th Visual Album is the “Circus Game Library” which goes through all the games in chronological order that the company has produced. The format for each section is for the most part an almost full-page illustration next to a second page with small in-game CGs. The D.C. Da Capo games have sections longer than two pages, but most of the images are in-game CGs. Also, some illustrations directed at a mature audience. This “Part 02” runs from pages 107 through 216.

CIRCUS 10th Visual Album ends with brief interviews with the artists and scenario designers, along with 4 original “thank you” illustrations from some of the CIRCUS artists like Konata and Takano Yuki. Overall, I liked this one better than MOONSTONE Complete Illustrations. Even with all the illustrations packed in, the prints were still clear and sharp. Though it is on the expensive side for an art book, it does provide a huge summary of promotional CIRCUS art that was previously only available on the products themselves.