Hayate the Combat Butler! Girls GRAPHICS6 min read
Reading Time: 4 minutesHayate the Combat Butler! Girls GRAPHICS Hata Kenjirou Illustrations is an out-dated collection of illustrations. Its release coincides with the film premiere of Hayate the Combat Butler! Heaven Is a Place on Earth. Girls GRAPHICS seems set on invoking nostalgia, but not eager to impress with new works.
The book is A4-size and 160 pages. The cover has a plastic texture similar to a sticker and the art is new to the book. Another unique feature are clear acetate pages and an insert booklet of comics.
Above is an example of a clear acetate page. They’re placed next to blank pages, but it’s a nice addition and not something you see often.
The book starts out with “Characters for CD Graphics” for 17 pages. It features exclusively illustrations without backgrounds. The next section, “Variety for Goods & Pin-Up Graphics“, is 9 pages, with centered illustrations.
Scene for DVD Graphics includes the illustrations Hata Kenjirou did for the anime DVD boxes and OVA. It’s also 9-pages and there’s also a spread in this section. Comic for Poster Graphics is a short 5-page section that includes single comic pages. The Vivid for Color Page Graphics I section runs from pages 49 through 63, and includes the illustrations that were in Shounen Sunday (少年サンデー) from as far back as 2004.
Though it may be a little hard to understand from the photo, that’s the insert leaflet comic book that I mentioned earlier. It’s A5 sized, like the manga, and still features the original advertisements that were printed next to the comics. And yes, including the advertisements, that counts as your pages 65 through 96. That’s like counting the commercials in the run time on a DVD.
Season for Cover Graphics includes the art used on Shounen Sunday covers from pages 99 to 115. The majority are full page illustrations, although there are a couple half-page illustrations. There’s also a section called Sensuous for Card Game Graphics, which contains the illustrations for the Hayate the Combat Butler! TCG. This section also includes two-pages of acetate illustrations. The last section is Vivid for Color Page Graphics II and it includes more Shounen Sunday illustrations.
The book ends with a 4-page interview with Hata Kenjirou with even more illustrations. There isn’t an index since all the information is next to the illustrations. Overall, Hayate the Combat Butler! Girls GRAPHICS Hata Kenjirou Illustrations is a pretty well-made book with a lot of decent content, but that comic leaflet being counted as 30-pages of this 160-page art book really soured things for me.
Title: Hayate the Combat Butler! Girls GRAPHICS Hata Kenjirou Illustrations タイトル: ハヤテのごとく！Girls GRAPHICS 畑健二郎イラスト集 Author: Hata Kenjirou Publication Date: 08/10/2011 Size: 160p NDL: https://id.ndl.go.jp/bib/000011247967
