Aquarian Age Official Visual Book

Posted by Zeb in Artbook Reviews on Jun 27th, 2004 | 0 comments
Title Aquarian Age Official Visual Book
Artist VARIOUS
Published: 10/12/1999
Publisher: BROCCOLI
Content 95 pages in total; 69 pages of colour illustrations; 5 pages of index and title pages; 10 pages of interview and game information; 11 pages showing cards from the game; Softcover – left to right format
Extras New copy will contain a card from the game at the back of the book, mind was second hand :(
Cover Price ¥2200
ISBN 4-04-707038-6
Rate Good
Purchase 14/02/2004 | JPQUEEN.COM | US$24.50
Comments I first saw this book and it’s contents, at a Manga Reading Day that I had held at my place. One of the girls had brought over her artbooks as well, and included was this book. The minute I flipped through it, I fell in love with it. More so because it contained images by one of my favourite artists, Aoi Nanase! When I saw this for sale at JPQueen, it was an immediate buy. It’s a shame it doesn’t come with the original extra card, but I’m not complaining since I finally have this very rare and hard to find book!

As the name suggests, this book collects together artwork done by artists for the game Aquarian Age. Being the first ‘Aquarian Age’ artbook produced, it contains an interesting selection of artwork from notable names such as Haruhiko Mikimoto (5 pages worth of artwork) Kazuhiko Tsuzuki (4 pages) Koge Donbo (3 pages) Aoi Nanase (2 pages) Atsuko Ishida (2 pages) Narumi Kakinouchi (2 pages) Toru Azumi and Omoiataru (2 pages.)
All in all, this book gathers together art by approximately 75 artists, with atleast one image per artist (if not more) and some of it is absolutely stunning!

On closer inspection, I think this book collects together the artwork used in the first series of this card game; the quality of art is high, but not as high as the later series that were created for the game. The 11 pages showing images of each card, gives you a good idea of what the cards look like (and a reference if you do decide to collect them.)
I give this book a ‘good’ rating because while it is a wonderful selection of artwork, there are a number of pages with 4 to 8 illustrations on them, some which would have benefited from having a whole page dedicated to them. I suppose this was due to a space and cost factor, but hey, it’s still annoying!

A must for any fan of this game, or art lover. I know I discovered new artists that I now like, after seeing their work in this book, and I think you will too :)
Aquarian Age Official Visual Book



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