I went to the brand new San Diego branch of BookOff, a large chain (in Japan) of used book/CD/DVD/game stores. After leaving a large pile of very old manga with the store attendant (to trade in for cash) I was left to browse around until called. When looking through their shelves of "anime illustrations" I found this rather oddly sized artbook for 15 dollars. The slip case is dirty but the rest is quite fine:
As you can see from the reference stick of gum, the book is quite generously sized. Both the "poster" and slipcase are textured paper. The book (blue) has it's own dust jacket. My white slipcase is rather worn and dirty but that's the cost of buying used.
The layout of the book is equally generous, most CG's take a entire page with rough sketches and variants filling the adjacent page along with brief notes. In addition to the CG sections (2/3rds of the book) there are song lyrics and a "materials" section with backgrounds, tachi-e (paper doll) galleries and the promotional art (and rough sketches for all) as well as a walk through for the dream route. The entire book is full color on glossy paper.
Overall, if you like Key's art or Air you will not be disappointed with this book. An excellent buy if you can find it.
The layout of the book is equally generous, most CG's take a entire page with rough sketches and variants filling the adjacent page along with brief notes. In addition to the CG sections (2/3rds of the book) there are song lyrics and a "materials" section with backgrounds, tachi-e (paper doll) galleries and the promotional art (and rough sketches for all) as well as a walk through for the dream route. The entire book is full color on glossy paper.
Overall, if you like Key's art or Air you will not be disappointed with this book. An excellent buy if you can find it.
