Tsukihime - Clair De Lune Illustration Anthology

Reading Time: 3 minutes

Released by Dengeki Daioh for Comiket 78, Shingettan Tsukihime Illustration Anthology Clair De Lune brings together the works of 30 artists, all illustrating characters from TYPE-MOON’s Shingetsutan Tsukihime. These tribute illustrations range from stunning to mediocre, but that’s the kind of variety that makes anthology collections worth it!

Clair De Lune is B5-sized and 36 pages when counting the covers. The cover text has a metallic finish, which makes it look a little more polished. The cover art is new by Takeuchi Takashi, the official character designer for Shingetsutan Tsukihime.

With so many artists, you have to expect a lot of different styles. In some cases, it fits the characters perfectly and in others they just look wrong! The book starts out with a mix of known and better-known artists, starting with Chihiro Aikura and Aida Takanobu with illustrations of Akiha Tohno. I expected to see a surplus of Arcueid fan arts, but was glad that other characters made it in, too. Hajime Ueda, artist for the FLCL manga and Bakemonogatari ending, also did an interesting illustration of Ciel.

Some of the bigger name artists are pictured above. Loveless illustrator Yun Kouga drew Arcueid, while Naru Nanao’s other half, Kokonobi, illustrated Akiha Tohno. Naru Nanao also has an illustration in this book, but it was surprisingly lackluster.

Not every illustration (or artist for that matter) is going to be included in this review, but I think this provides a better idea of what to expect from this anthology, since it can often be hit or miss. The lovely illustration of Arcueid is by Tomatika, and Yasuyuki Tsurugi has one with the same character, too.

Ar Tonelico artist Nagi Ryo illustrated the tough looking Ciel above, while Ef: A Fairy Tale of the Two manga artist Juri Miyabi illustrated the adjacent Ciel. Ruroo’s bloody version of Satsuki Yumizuka shows off a completely different aspect of the character not present in Takoyaki’s cute version, pictured in the opening photo for this post.

The last couple of pages are taken up with artists’ comments. While I really loved some of the illustrations, I felt like a lot of them were just kind of there. Given the incredible cast and style of Shingetsutan Tsukihime, I kind of hoped this collection would lean towards the dramatic. But even though that’s not the case, at least the illustrations are still quite well done as a whole!