Book Review: Ar Tonelico Visual Book

The Ar Tonelico Visual Book is the English edition of the Japanese one アルトネリコ ビジュアルブック 蒼天楽土 released in 2010. So Udon has been quite fast in bringing this Englished translated edition out.

It collects artwork from the three game series including Ar tonelico, Ar tonelico II and Ar tonelico Qoga. This is the first time I've heard of the game and seen its artwork. The content inside are arranged into three chapters for the splash art, character designs and the interview.

The art is beautiful. The character designs come with the character profiles. The designs are the finished versions so there aren't any concept sketches. There are plenty of characters and they are drawn in very typical Japanese style, in this case I think it's more towards the Shoujo manga (少女漫画) style except with more elaborate fantasy costumes. There are also costume designs for the female characters at different levels.

The background artworks are great but many pieces are packed into a 2-page spread that appears before the chapters. So each piece is rather small.

The lengthy interview at the back is with producer Astunori Kawachi and director Akira Tsuchiya. They talk about the concept of the story, the game and the music.

The binding of the book looks alright, the glue not very flexible so I would recommend caution as with other paperback artbooks published by Udon.

Because of the style of the art, this book should appeal more to fans of the game.

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