Girls Girls Girls! Illustration Collection

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The first volume in the series, called Girls Girls Girls! Illustration Collection, came out in February 2007. It’s full of illustrations from well-known artists that featured in E☆2 magazine. This book is like a time capsule, showing how many of today’s popular artists evolved their style.

The cover illustration is new to the book and I have yet to see it re-printed somewhere else. The art works organize by themes like Gravure-teki Girl, Zoukusei-teki Girl, and Nichijyou-teki Girl. Inside of that are sub-themes like magical girls and girls wearing glasses. Artists include Tony Taka, Suzuhira Hiro, Fumio, Tinkle, Satoshi Kiba, Kaya Kuramoto, and Shiranagi Masa. Satoshi Kiba’s work in particular shows signs of things to come, yet definitely looks different than his current style.

I know 2007 wasn’t that long ago, but it’s still impressive that most of these artists are still active. Koin, best know for his Kanokon art work, is an excellent artist. This is one of the few occasions where I get to see his non-series art work. Also at this point in time, the artist Akira’s style looked more like Aoi Nishimata’s than his own. Miyasu Risa already had her signature style at this point. You can see more of in her Grande Desserts Color Illustrations.

Girls Girls Girls! Illustration Collection is 120 pages in length and A4 in size. Only 80 pages are in color with the rest in black and white. Though it’s all original work in the monochrome section, I’m glad they got rid of it in later volumes. There are two illustrations by Ryo Ueda in this volume and one by RCO Wada.

The black and white illustrations that are in the book take up nearly 40 pages. The illustrations on the pages correspond to the artists’ featured color illustration, often with the same character in both. It really makes it seem more like a character than just a random drawing.

My interest in the Girls Girls Girls! series re-kindled with the upcoming release of the 5th volume in this series, Girls Girls Girls!5 ～Pure Girl Collection～ on May 26th. These books really are a pleasure to flip through. The high quality selections help to ensure that the art work keeps from looking dated.