A feast for the Soul Eater fan’s eyes.
Creative Staff
Art: Atsushi Ohkubo
What they say:
This deluxe, full-color, hardcover edition collects the artwork of Atsushi Ohkubo, creator of Soul Eater and B. Ichi. Included are cover art, color pages from the Japanese magazine publications, promotional artwork, designs from the Soul Eater video games, and much more! A must-have for the collection of every Soul Eater fan!
Content/Presentation:
I’m always a bit surprised when a company besides UDON Entertainment decides to release an art book in English. While there is a market for these books, that market is small, and most publishers don’t want to take the risk. Yen Press has put out some extremely nice presentations of niche titles before, so an art book of one of their existing titles wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, just unexpected.
Yen probably couldn’t have asked for better timing for releasing Soul Eater Soul Art: The Illustrations of Atsushi Ohkubo. A localized edition of the art book released in Japan, it maintains the layout and design of the original, and it covers up to volume 14 of Soul Eater manga. Sticking to the release schedule of the original means that this art book hits shelves right as the Toonami showing of the anime adaptation builds up a new audience in the U.S.
The oblong hardcover book is dressed with a transparent slipcase with the title and some lifted line art printed on it. It has an immediate ‘ooh ahh’ feel, but a bit of warning for collectors, the slip cases edges dent easily and can pick up opaque marks. Under that is the dust jacket, and under that yet a different pattern on the actual book cover itself. The illustration of Maka for the dust jacket was original to the publishing of the art book, and it’s good indicator of what you’re getting inside.
The presentation inside is just as nice as the covers, with high quality, extremely thick matte paper that you’d expect for a coffee table book. The binding allows for the book to be laid open flat so you can take in the full images without worrying about breaking something.
The artwork itself runs from the promotional art from before the start of the series up until the works released at volume 14. Also included is art from Ohkubo’s earlier series, B. Ichi, which does an excellent job of showing just how much his art style has changed. Ohkubo clearly likes to switch up his styles and tries out many different layouts and techniques. Early on he switches from Copic markers to all digital coloring, which only serves to make his artwork pop even more. An index in the back lists the origin of each illustration and sometimes a brief author’s note about the piece.
Unfortunately there’s no interview with Ohkubo and no longer explanations for each illustration. His comments are brief and sometimes just as nonsensical as the gag comics he includes in the manga releases. I would have loved to have heard about his influences or techniques more, but have to settle with a few brief words and some lovely art.
In Summary
Yen Press has released a fine collector’s item in Soul Eater Soul Art. Fans of Soul Eater’s poppy, street-art looks will find it full of high quality reproductions of the original art that really show off the different experimentations in style. The book itself is about as high quality as you could wish, with some very neat presentation touches like the lucite slip cover. The only real disappointment is that there’s not much insight into what went into designing the various characters, and no extra interviews to delve deeper into the series development.
Content Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: June 25th, 2013
MSRP: $24.99