Book Review: 背景画集 草薙 5

草薙 (Kusanagi) is a Japanese artist group that creates background art for animation and computer games. This is the fifth portfolio art book which focuses on game art.

The book is divided in chapters by work titles:

• チョコボの不思議なダンジョン (Chocobo's Dungeon)
• ファイナルファンタジーX (Final Fantasy X)
• ファイナルファンタジーXII (Final Fantasy XII)
• フロントミッション (Front Mission Online)
• アヴァロンコード (Avalon Code)
• ルーンファクトリー2 (Rune Factory 2) & Rune Factory Frontier
• Unrealized works
• Children of the Sun

All are captioned, in Japanese, but the art speaks for itself. With fewer chapters in this book, each has more illustrations to show. This is a background art book so there aren't any character designs. The art included comes in the form of preliminary line art and the finished coloured painting.

For Final Fantasy XII, there are several flying ship designs included. I've not played any of the games listed above so I can't confirm if all the environments and sets are included. If you've played any of these games, most of the images should be nostalgic.

This book is recommended to background and video game artists.

Links:
More Kusanagi art books

This book is available at:
Amazon Japan | Play-asia.com

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Here's the Amazon Japan buying guide for your reference.