Growlanser Art Works – artbooks.me

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Growlanser Art Works is a definitive collection of Growlanser illustrations, covering the character illustrations and promotional art works, game covers, and so on from the first game through the sixth. Although there have been a few Growlanser illustration collections released over the years, Growlanser Art Works is the one to get if you just want the art work.

This 176 page, A4-sized art book is organized by game, with each game showcasing the promotional art works followed by individual character arts. There is no index; instead all of the image copyright information is included below the illustrations in the white borders.

The first section covers Growlanser & Growlanser PSP from pages 3 to 40. There are about 20 pages of character profile illustrations, but they’re full page illustrations and quite elaborate. Also, the Growlanser PSP art works look up to date, though I’m not sure about the timeline for when they were illustrated.

The sections for Growlanser II and III are quite short comparatively, covering only pages 41 to 52 and 53 to 68 respectively. The majority of illustrations for both of these sections are of individual characters, although the poses are on the whole more interesting than the standard profile pictures.

Growlanser IV is another large section, including both -Wayfarer of the Time- and Return. This section runs from pages 70 to 104. I guess since it was one of the more popular games, Growlanser IV ended up with a lot more promotional art works than the previous two. But just about half of this section still consists of character illustrations.

The next section is for Growlanser V Generations. Though I think Satoshi Urushihara’s illustrations are pretty consistent all the way through, regardless of when they were drawn, there is a slight change in the coloring for these illustrations when you compare them to the previous ones in the book. Everyone looks a lot more airbrushed than cel-shaded. Generations spans from pages 106 to 134.

The last large section is Growlanser VI Precarious World which covers pages 136 to 156. This section reflects Satoshi Urushihara’s current style, with much softer coloring. After this section is the very short “Et cetera” section which has three cross-over illustrations. The book ends with an interview with the Growlanser game staff (which includes Urushihara) and 8 pages of rough sketches and profiles of selected characters from the book.

Even though I pre-ordered Growlanser Art Works on Amazon Japan months ago, I actually only just received it two weeks ago due to a much higher demand for the art book than expected. Several other sites I checked didn’t have it either, so a bit of hunting may be in order if it’s something you want. It’s definitely worth it, especially if you passed on earlier compilations for this series!