Railway Girls and Scenery Pictorial Book

Reading Time: 3 minutes

The illustrations in Railway Girls and Scenery Pictorial Book (鉄道少女百景) are all new, featuring girls at real life train stations and railways. Much like in previous pictorial books, information about the trains are provided throughout the art book.

This A4-size, 64 page art book is quite short for a commercial production. It feels even shorter because every illustration aside from the cover is a spread. This means larger illustrations, but fewer pictures overall. The cover art is by Kishida Mel. In total, 23 illustrators participate.

Both Ame and Yuu, who were both illustrators for RubiconHearts’s Neko to Shoujo doujinshi, have illustrations in Railway Girls and Scenery Pictorial Book. Though there are trains in many of the illustrations, they aren’t a requirement. Some of the scenes are next to railways.

The variety of illustrations is impressive, and not just because of the artists, but because of the scenarios as well. There are reunions, arrivals, departures, school trips, lots of everyday scenes brought together in a creative way. Pictured above are illustrations from Nabana and toi8.

The backgrounds and scenery really elevate these illustrations. Even when the character art work isn’t engaging, the detailed backgrounds make it look more finished and professional. Naomi Yano is the photographer and writer for this book. I would have liked to see the photo inspirations for some of these scenes, but I guess they were just for the artists to work with. The artists above from left to right are Konatsu Karasu, Tokunou Shotaro, and Saitom.

Train commentaries happen every six illustrations or so, and the artists’ commentaries are in the index. Along with their names are website addresses, so you can find more works if you’re interested. The beautifully illustrated scenes really make Railway Girls and Scenery Pictorial Book a nice collection overall, even if it’s a little on the short side.