Touhou Project Tribute Arts 2

Reading Time: 5 minutes

The Touhou Project Tribute Arts 2 is the second installment in Toranoana’s Touhou illustration collections. It came out during Reitaisai 7 on March 14, 2010. While the previous volume came with tarot cards, this time there are two books. One features a full color collection, and the other is a black and white sketch collection of the works featured in the color version.

This set of books is B5-size and housed in an outer cardboard case featuring original art work by Kususaga Rin. Inside are a couple of random trading cards featuring art work from the book. You can see the ones I received in the far right photo above.

Color

The cover for Touhou Project Tribute Arts 2 color book is by Aka Ringo like with the first volume. Reimu Hakurei is the cover girl, but this time she’s with by Hieda No Akyuu. The theme for the art collection is really cool this time. Basically, each of the illustration sets take inspiration from the Touhou game background music, starting with the first Windows game, “The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil.”

“The Embodiment of Scarlet Devil” section features 12 illustrations by twelve artists, including the cover illustration by Fruitpunch. It’s also the black and white Touhou Project Tribute Arts 2 Curtain Call cover. This set includes art by Morii Shizuki, Tokiame, Banpai Akira (Vampire Killer) and Shingo among others.

The second section is based on the music of the “Perfect Cherry Blossom” game released at Comiket 64. It’s 14 pages with illustrations from Sayori, Capura.L, Archlich, Garnet, An2A, Shimeko and many more. Archlich’s illustration is a real standout in this group.

The next section is “Imperishable Night“, which released at Comiket 66. This section includes 16 illustrations. My favorite in this section was Ideolo’s Kamishirasawa Keine, whose costume looks more intricate than normal.

Fuyuno Haruaki drew the opening illustration for Phantasmagoria of Flower View. This section is comparably short, with only 7 illustrations. Illustrations by Fukahire and KUROT are also in this section. “Shoot the Bullet” is next, with a small section with 3 illustrations. All of the illustrations feature Aya Shameimaru.

The illustrations for “Mountain of Faith” have some of the best background art work in the book, even when the character illustrations are a bit weak. There are 12 illustrations in this section, all of which have detailed backgrounds.

“Subterranean Animism“, the 11th game in the series, has 11 illustrations. Rin Kaenbyou appears in a few illustrations in this section. She was probably the most notable character from the game.

The last big section is “Undefined Fantastic Object“, with a total of 12 illustrations. “Immaterial and Missing Power” has four illustrations. “Scarlet Weather Rhapsody” is also short, with only three illustrations. “Touhou Hisoutensoku” is the last section and features the Aka Ringo cover art and one other illustration.

Monochrome

~Curtain Call~ is 144 pages long and included a mix of sketches and monochrome illustrations. The first 48 pages are all sketches with some artist commentaries. The black and white illustrations are actually pretty decent for the most part, and run from page 50 through 144. Not something I would have purchased separately, but nice when it’s an “extra.”

Touhou Project Tribute Arts 2 turned out to be a great collection of works. I’d even say it was better than the first based on the theme alone. Overall, I think the quality of the art work they accepted for this volume has definitely gone up.