Having went into the city on Wednesday for a job interview, I made a stop by Kinokuniya afterwards and looking around the artbook section I came across Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu Official Fanbook. Being a collector of artbooks and a fan of SHnY I had to buy this and at a small price of $25 AU it was worth it. Normally if I saw this on HLJ I would have ordered it but most artbooks I see on HLJ make their way to Kinokuniya anyhow.
The book is divided into different sections starting off with 14 pages of colour illustrations, but this was only Part 1.
Next we move onto character designs which portray all your favourite characters which even show the various fashion outfits they wore throughout the series. Also I never actually noticed how long Tsuruya’s hair was until I saw this artbook. But then I don’t pay attention to alot of details in anime when watching at 2 in the morning. Also at the end of this part there is a layout of the setting arrangement for all of Haruhi’s classmates.
Moving on we then enter Part 1 of the Episode Guides. Only covering the first half in the order of TV screening they come with screen captures in colour.
After the episode guide, we have an interview section of the 5 main seiyuu’s. Also a one page report on the SOS-dan Live held at Animelo Summer Live 2006 -OUTRIDE- event.
Right now the next section is what I look forward to in most fanbooks. The Tribute Section. 6 pages of other artists works on SHnY and some are very nice indeed.
Next up is a section detailing the background settings of SHnY including the SOS-dan clubroom, various sections of the school and various town settings. All including monochrome pictures and short descriptions.
Another monochrome section follows later, covering interviews with the staff of Kyoto Animation and even list a history of KyoAni’s works. We even get an interview with the author Nagaru Tanigawa and the artists Noizi Ito ending off with a nice double spread artwork by Noizi Ito.
Following this we come across coverage of the available merchandise for SHnY. Although not much merchandise available at this time but I’m sure there will be much much more in a few months. Then Part 2 of the Episode Guide and Part 2 of the colour illustrations follows.
Overall it is a nice fanbook for Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu and for only ¥1260 JPY (including tax) it is a fairly cheap fanbook and it’s something that Haruhi fans should buy. You can buy your copy at Amazon Japan as HLJ have it on backorder. So I suggest you buy this quick before they are sold out. Unless you are a cheapass you could probably find a torrent for it somewhere which have high quality scans of the colour illustrations (and no I don’t know where to get the torrent), but buying a hard copy is always nice.
That book looks like it’s made of win and awesome. Bikini boob grab ftw!!
nuggets ~_~
OSOI! At last you get it haha. It’s a great book though. I think kino might have sold out of it by now.