At the very beginning, I would like to inform you that some of the material used in this post is not intended for younger readers therefore I kindly ask you to stop reading here if you fall into such an audience.
Table of Content
Yabuki Kentarou – “Venus” To LOVEru Darkness (Shueisha, 2012) – Komentarz
Yabuki Kentarou – a creator who probably doesn’t need to be introduced to most. Best known for his record-breaking popular manga To LOVEru. Venus is another collection of his illustrations from the continuation of that series, To LOVEru Darkness. Published similarly to Harem Gold, which I reviewed some time ago here.
The publication contains 142 pages. It consists almost exclusively of illustrations printed on very good quality A4 chalk paper. Also, It is worth noting that it has a hardcover. It contains several fold-out pages, including one that folds out into 4 A4 sheets, which really looks great. The detail of the author’s drawings is well known, so I wasn’t very surprised that in this artbook, too, from all the illustrations the details even pour out of every page. In full color, of course.
Venus is divided into several chapters. Presented are basically all the heroines of To LOVEru Darkness in various situations and outfits. There was also one where Lala, Momo, Nana, Yami, Mikan, Yui and Mea appeared in wedding dresses, which is the theme from the cover. Figurines were also created based on several of the works included in Venus. I reviewed one of them (created based on the illustration in the photo below) here.
The last contains detailed sketches of the author’s works, which have appeared in full color in the pages of various magazines and other minor or major publications by Yabuki Kentarou. The final few pages contain descriptions of each sketch.
First pages
As in the case of Harem Gold, here too the introduction is a multi-layered drawing. Each layer of which is printed on a transparent film that removes more parts of the garment. This time we are greeted by Momo and Mikan.
Nowadays, it is no longer easy to buy this artbook in new condition. Especially if we would like to buy it at the cover price. Prices for new copies start at ¥6,000. At this point, even used pieces exceed the initial price quite a bit.
Yabuki Kentarou – “Venus” To LOVEru Darkness (Shueisha, 2012) – Show Off
Before I show a dozen photos of the artbook’s contents, a quick glance at the exterior page rolled up in a high-quality wrapper. The whole thing basically consists of three layers, the removal of which causes certain parts of the heroines’ clothing to disappear. The first is a plastic cover (which further protects the cover).
Under the cover we already have a wrapper along with the obi.
After removing the wrapper from the obi, again the same illustration, only like something less 🙂