Katanagatari Visual Book4 min read
Reading Time: 3 minutesI’m a big fan of Katanagatari. I love the story and the unique character designs by Take (竹). The anime style stayed true to the original designs with Kawada Tsuyoshi’s adaptations. The Katanagatari Visual Book is what you would expect from a visual book. But it does an excellent job gathering all the art work.
Katanagatari Visual Book is B5-size and 96 pages. The first 30 pages showcase art work from the DVDs. It’s not often that DVD illustrations are in visual books, so that’s a treat.
There are four short illustration galleries. The first gallery is four pages and contains several promotional art works. The episode summaries take up the next 12 pages, followed by six pages of color line arts of the Maniwa Ninjas. There are also costume changes for the main characters.
The second gallery is also four pages. There are quite a few illustrations I haven’t seen before, which really made it worthwhile. After the gallery is voice actor interviews and a Take illustration with Togame and Yasuri Shichikawa in modern clothing.
The third gallery is the same length and leads into the background art work. The background art along with the designs for each of the swords occupy the next 12 pages of the book.
There’s one last image gallery before a couple more pages of Take’s art works. The visual book ends with two cross-talk interviews. One features anime character designer Kawada Tsuyoshi, director Motonaga Keitaro, and series composer Uezu Makoto. The other is between Motonaga Keitaro and the original creator, NisiOisin. I think the Katanagatari Visual Book really strikes a good balance between art work and information. For those of you seeking the art work, I would recommend Take Illustrations Katanagatari Emaki!
Title: Katanagatari Visual Book タイトル: 大河アニメ刀語ビジュアルブック Author: 講談社BOX 編 Publication Date: 04/07/2011 Size: 96p NDL: https://id.ndl.go.jp/bib/000011164114
