![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
- anime/manga,
- anime/manga: ah! my goddess,
- anime/manga: fate stay night,
- anime/manga: fate zero,
- anime/manga: kara no kyoukai,
- anime/manga: makoto shinkai,
- anime/manga: tsukihime,
- gaming,
- gaming: fate sn ha tc uc,
- gaming: mahoutsukai no yoru,
- gaming: melty blood,
- gaming: tsukihime,
- movies: kara no kyoukai,
- movies: makoto shinkai,
- scanspam: animanga/gaming
Type Moon Ace vol. 01
So. Kadokawa's new Specialized Super-Glossy Super-Expensive Magazine (TM) is Type Moon Ace, a magazine devoted to, you guessed it, Type Moon-created franchises.
(For those of you who don't know, Type Moon is a doujinshi-group-cum-legitimate-publisher that creates novels, manga, games, and animated works that usually center around incredibly kick-ass women. And they are also responsible for some of the finest porn currently available in the Japanese market, nay, the world.)
So here's what the first issue of Type Moon Ace looks like.
Click for high-res!
This first issue is A4-sized, 242 pages long, and retails for 780 yen. It's got 97 pages of glossy full-color articles, and the remainder of the magazine is black-and-white manga. The manga portion of the magazine isn't printed on glossy paper, of course, but the paper/ink quality is still a thousand times better than you'll find in any of the regular monthly or weekly manga anthologies.
The magazine opens with an eight-page preview of Type Moon's upcoming 2009 project, Mahoutsukai no Yoru (English subtitle: "Witch on the Holy Night." Ouch.) It will be a PC game, although I'm sure that it will spawn an anime and a manga adaptation eventually.
This is followed immediately by a six-page Tsukihime feature. The Tsukihime article is, of course, accompanied by Takashi Takeuchi's 2000-era artwork, which is just... kind of cringe-inducing. Especially when compared to his modern style exhibited in the MnY article. Takeuchi has evolved a LOT as an artist. Just compare:
Tsukihime
Mahoutsukai no Yoru
Mahoutsukai no Yoru
For an even more dramatic demonstration of Takeuchi's growth as an artist, just look at the progression of his group shots:
Tsukihime
Melty Blood
Kara no Kyoukai
Click for high-res!
(And why yes, theses are calendar scans! There is a calendar! I'm getting to that, hold on a minute.)
So, anyway. All of the glossy full-page reproductions of Takashi Takeuchi's artwork is both the magazine's greatest strength, and it's greatest weakness. Because Takashi Takeuchi has changed a LOT as an artist. So his old work is just terrible; but his new work is just fantastic.
Anyway, there are a lot of articles, covering the entirety of the Type Moon ouevre (hey, I didn't know they made a BL game!), and all accompanied by lush Takeuchi illustrations. The Fate/Zero article is especially good, and not just because it contains reprints of the all of the color illustrations in the novels.
Also, Fate/Unlimited Codes looks so amazingly awesome it makes my teeth hurt. (*weeps with the sheer joy of it*) They scooped screenshots of most of the major character's Noble Phantasms in this issue. HOLY GOD. I cannot WAIT to play this.
The Fate/Hollow Ataraxia article was painful to read, as usual, because the game had such a limited release and thus is nearly impossible to find nowadays - hence, I've never played it. But I want to very badly. I can't content myself on the complete CG archive (warning: hentai content) forever. Although, interestingly, the magazine article about Hollow Ataraxia included some small reprints of full versions of Takeuchi's CG paintings, some of which got severely cropped in the actual game release.
There are some gag articles, too. There's a couple pages where Takeuchi illustrates the Tsukihime characters as magical girls. But the best is a fake article covering NECOARC THE MOVIE (also obviously fake), in which Takeuchi uses his mad art skillz to spoof the Utena movie, Makoto Shinkai, Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, and others.
There are also the standard creator interviews, including a mother-long interview with George Nakata. Hey, did you know that there's a villain in every major Type Moon game modeled after George? Guess who the character in Fate/Stay Night was.
Oh hey look, the Takashi Takeuchi interview includes full-body reprints of the girls in the cover illustration!
The remainder of the magazine is manga. The manga section opens with two companion manga stories, "Fate/Zero: Kiritsugu" and "Fate/Zero: Kotomine," illustrated by Morii Shizuki and Tomoya Haruno respectively. The first is about Kiritsugu (duh) and his relationships with Saber, Irisviel, and Illyasviel as a child. The second story is about Kotomine and child!Rin, and is in turns hilarious and heartbreaking. Good stuff. Also, both of the artists have really unique and distinct visual styles, which is refreshing when compared to the generic look of the regular Fate/Stay Night manga.
There are a bunch of other manga stories, ranging from humorous to dramatic to action-packed. My favorite, though, is "One Day in Ahnenerbe," an insane crossover manga illustrated by Bsuke.
Moral of this story: NEVER challenge a group of Type Moon heroines to a fight.
The bonus goodies that come with this issue are very, very good. First, there's a B5-sized school calendar. I've already scanned a few of the images above. Here are a few more:
Yes, that's Saber on a motorcycle. No, the calendar is not all Fate illustrations. But the Fate illustrations are obviously my favorites, so that's why I'm sharing them here.
There's also a CD case with Saber and Irisviel on it. It hits all the right criteria for being a Decent Furoku Item: Is the artwork used original? Yes. Is the item functional? Yes. Is the item NOT too embarassingly dorky to actually use in public? Again, yes. You guys know that I accumulate massive amounts of useless furoku from my magazine-reading habits, but this thing I might actually make use of. It's very cute, classy, and certainly much less embarassing to use in public than, say, a giant handkerchief with Belldandy on it.
Here's the same illustration, as reprinted on the magazine's final page:
And well, that's it. Overall, it was a really good bargain for only 780 yen. I have no idea if this magazine is going to be monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, or what. But I do know that I will be buying the next issue.
(For those of you who don't know, Type Moon is a doujinshi-group-cum-legitimate-publisher that creates novels, manga, games, and animated works that usually center around incredibly kick-ass women. And they are also responsible for some of the finest porn currently available in the Japanese market, nay, the world.)
So here's what the first issue of Type Moon Ace looks like.
Click for high-res!
This first issue is A4-sized, 242 pages long, and retails for 780 yen. It's got 97 pages of glossy full-color articles, and the remainder of the magazine is black-and-white manga. The manga portion of the magazine isn't printed on glossy paper, of course, but the paper/ink quality is still a thousand times better than you'll find in any of the regular monthly or weekly manga anthologies.
Articles!
The magazine opens with an eight-page preview of Type Moon's upcoming 2009 project, Mahoutsukai no Yoru (English subtitle: "Witch on the Holy Night." Ouch.) It will be a PC game, although I'm sure that it will spawn an anime and a manga adaptation eventually.
This is followed immediately by a six-page Tsukihime feature. The Tsukihime article is, of course, accompanied by Takashi Takeuchi's 2000-era artwork, which is just... kind of cringe-inducing. Especially when compared to his modern style exhibited in the MnY article. Takeuchi has evolved a LOT as an artist. Just compare:
Tsukihime
Mahoutsukai no Yoru
Mahoutsukai no Yoru
For an even more dramatic demonstration of Takeuchi's growth as an artist, just look at the progression of his group shots:
Tsukihime
Melty Blood
Kara no Kyoukai
Click for high-res!
(And why yes, theses are calendar scans! There is a calendar! I'm getting to that, hold on a minute.)
So, anyway. All of the glossy full-page reproductions of Takashi Takeuchi's artwork is both the magazine's greatest strength, and it's greatest weakness. Because Takashi Takeuchi has changed a LOT as an artist. So his old work is just terrible; but his new work is just fantastic.
Anyway, there are a lot of articles, covering the entirety of the Type Moon ouevre (hey, I didn't know they made a BL game!), and all accompanied by lush Takeuchi illustrations. The Fate/Zero article is especially good, and not just because it contains reprints of the all of the color illustrations in the novels.
Also, Fate/Unlimited Codes looks so amazingly awesome it makes my teeth hurt. (*weeps with the sheer joy of it*) They scooped screenshots of most of the major character's Noble Phantasms in this issue. HOLY GOD. I cannot WAIT to play this.
The Fate/Hollow Ataraxia article was painful to read, as usual, because the game had such a limited release and thus is nearly impossible to find nowadays - hence, I've never played it. But I want to very badly. I can't content myself on the complete CG archive (warning: hentai content) forever. Although, interestingly, the magazine article about Hollow Ataraxia included some small reprints of full versions of Takeuchi's CG paintings, some of which got severely cropped in the actual game release.
There are some gag articles, too. There's a couple pages where Takeuchi illustrates the Tsukihime characters as magical girls. But the best is a fake article covering NECOARC THE MOVIE (also obviously fake), in which Takeuchi uses his mad art skillz to spoof the Utena movie, Makoto Shinkai, Ge Ge Ge no Kitaro, and others.
There are also the standard creator interviews, including a mother-long interview with George Nakata. Hey, did you know that there's a villain in every major Type Moon game modeled after George? Guess who the character in Fate/Stay Night was.
Oh hey look, the Takashi Takeuchi interview includes full-body reprints of the girls in the cover illustration!
 Click for high-res! |  Click for high-res! |
Manga!
The remainder of the magazine is manga. The manga section opens with two companion manga stories, "Fate/Zero: Kiritsugu" and "Fate/Zero: Kotomine," illustrated by Morii Shizuki and Tomoya Haruno respectively. The first is about Kiritsugu (duh) and his relationships with Saber, Irisviel, and Illyasviel as a child. The second story is about Kotomine and child!Rin, and is in turns hilarious and heartbreaking. Good stuff. Also, both of the artists have really unique and distinct visual styles, which is refreshing when compared to the generic look of the regular Fate/Stay Night manga.
There are a bunch of other manga stories, ranging from humorous to dramatic to action-packed. My favorite, though, is "One Day in Ahnenerbe," an insane crossover manga illustrated by Bsuke.
Moral of this story: NEVER challenge a group of Type Moon heroines to a fight.
Furoku!
The bonus goodies that come with this issue are very, very good. First, there's a B5-sized school calendar. I've already scanned a few of the images above. Here are a few more:
Yes, that's Saber on a motorcycle. No, the calendar is not all Fate illustrations. But the Fate illustrations are obviously my favorites, so that's why I'm sharing them here.
There's also a CD case with Saber and Irisviel on it. It hits all the right criteria for being a Decent Furoku Item: Is the artwork used original? Yes. Is the item functional? Yes. Is the item NOT too embarassingly dorky to actually use in public? Again, yes. You guys know that I accumulate massive amounts of useless furoku from my magazine-reading habits, but this thing I might actually make use of. It's very cute, classy, and certainly much less embarassing to use in public than, say, a giant handkerchief with Belldandy on it.
Here's the same illustration, as reprinted on the magazine's final page:
And well, that's it. Overall, it was a really good bargain for only 780 yen. I have no idea if this magazine is going to be monthly, bi-monthly, quarterly, or what. But I do know that I will be buying the next issue.
no subject
no subject