Yoshiyuki Sadamoto Illustrations CARMINE

Reading Time: 5 minutes

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto Illustrations CARMINE came out as a limited edition boxed set in March 2009. This giant art book includes works from FLCL, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Nadia Secret of Blue Water, Aim for the Top! 2, and .hack//SIGN, as well as few original illustrations. The limited edition has a price tag of ￥13,000, but the standard edition will be ￥3,150.

The limited edition of CARMINE comes boxed with a “digital” collection of the art book. The disc has wallpaper sizes of the art, as well as two stick posters of Rei and Asuka.

CARMINE comes in a hard cover case, with a design that looks like shattered glass on a light-reflective surface. It also comes with two prints that appear as illustrations in the art book, one from Aim for the Top! 2 and the other from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

The book itself is hardcover, B4-size and 168 pages. The book is divided by series, although there is some overlap. Summer Wars and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time are both in the same section. Most of the art work in the book is from Neon Genesis Evangelion.

There are a couple of images I haven’t seen before, like the one with Asuka and Rei in ballerina costumes. Most were recognizable illustrations from merchandise like DVD and manga covers.

Neon Genesis Evangelion takes up 80 pages of this 168 page book. The category splits into illustrations for the TV series, and the movie Evangelion 1.0: You Are (NOT) Alone. The movie section is short and includes one of the few anime illustrations Sadamoto drew for Evangelion in recent years.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars sections include only five illustrations, with only one from Summer Wars. At the time this book came out, Summer Wars was not yet in theaters. Promotional illustrations like the one featured were probably all that was available.

The .hack section includes a total of nine illustrations, with each illustration getting a full page. Easily the most beautiful art work in the book, even if it’s not a series I’m into.

Aim for the Top! 2 has 10 pages with 10 illustrations, most of which were the anime style works for the DVD covers. I’m a fan of the DVD covers for this OVA, and it’s impressive to see the illustrations in high resolution.

It’s been a while since FLCL came out. The best collection of illustrations from this show, the Groundwork of FLCL, is mostly just story board animation sketches. Even with just nine color illustrations, it’s still more color FLCL art than I’ve seen in any other book!

Also, the FLCL section is the only one to also have monochrome illustrations; these works also feature on the DVDs. There are eight monochrome illustrations in total.

The final section in CARMINE is “Other Works” and includes originals and two works from Nadia Secret of Blue Water. The majority of Yoshiyuki’s Nadia illustrations are in his earlier art book Der Mond, which was re-published in the US.

The art book ends with a long interview with Yoshiyuki Sadamoto and guests Hideaki Anno, Mamoru Hosoda, and Kazuya Tsurumaki. The monochrome index takes up the last few pages, with the original publication info underneath each thumbnail. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto Illustrations CARMINE is an excellent book, but in all honesty, I would have waited for the standard edition.