Shibano Kaito - kr+6 Illustrated Collection

Title: kr+6 kr3 Illustrated Collection 2010
タイトル: kr+6
Pages: 12 (including covers)
Release date: 05/04/2010

Reading Time: 2 minutes

In the quiet time between Comikets, Shibano Kaito, probably best known as the artist for the Luminous Arc game trilogy, released a short 12 page doujinshi for Comitia 92. It actually feels even shorter because four of those “pages” are the front, back and inside covers.

Including the cover art, there are a total of eight illustrations in the kr+6 Illustrated Collection. The cover isn’t repeated inside, but all of the illustrations have the fantasy style that’s so prevalent in Shibano Kaito’s game designs.

Although the staple-bound cover is glossy and smooth to the touch, the inside pages are a little rough, and lightly textured, but it doesn’t affect the illustrations much. It might account for the slightly faded look that some of the illustrations have.

I bought this with a kind of morbid curiosity, because at the time I had seen several of his short books on Yahoo! Japan go for quite a bit of money, and I couldn’t help but wonder why. And though the art work is gorgeous, I’m sure the pricing has more to do with his success as the Luminous Arc character designer than the actual doujinshi.