Ideolo's BLACK★ALBUM

Title: BLACK★ALBUM
タイトル: BLACK★ALBUM
Release Date: 12/30/2010
Pages: 20

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Ideolo’s new Touhou doujinshi BLACK★ALBUM more or less starts up where his Comiket 78 volume, Carnival Fantasy, left off featuring many of the Touhou girls that weren’t included in the previous book. Ideolo’s designs are as beautiful as ever, this time combining his colorful palette with sharp black shadows and background designs.

BLACK★ALBUM is B5-sized, staple-bound and 20 pages, not counting the covers. The beautiful cover art of Yakumo Yukari is not included inside, but at least the illustration is not obscured by text. Most of the illustrations feature single characters on a page, though there are a few combination works. The collection starts and ends with Reisen Udongein Inaba.

Though the art is similar in style to Carnival Fantasy the illustrations in BLACK★ALBUM seem even more stylized with the heavy contrast the black creates. Ideolo has once again tweaked the costume designs for the characters, as you can see with Onozuka Komachi’s no-sleeves look and face covering scarf, which instantly makes her look even more badass. Shinki’s costume design by Ideolo should be the new standard, her original one looks too Christmas-y.

There are a total of three spreads by Ideolo in BLACK★ALBUM, one featuring Aya Syameimaru, another with Reiuji Utsuho and Kaenbyou Rin (in silhouette) and the third with both Kazami Yuuki and Medicine Melancholy.

77gl is once again the guest artist for Ideolo, with an illustration featuring several of the Touhou girls. BLACK★ALBUM is another excellent collection from Neko Worki and with Ideolo’s creative designs it almost makes Touhou feel new again.