Book Review: 背景画集 草薙6 (Kusanagi Vol 6)

草薙 (Kusanagi) is a Japanese artist group that creates background art for animation and computer games. This is their sixth art book and it focuses on video game art.

The game titles are:

• ラプソディア (Rhapsodia)
• 幻想水滸伝V (Genso Suikoden V)
• 幻想水滸伝ティアクライス (Suikoden Tierkreis)
• がんばれゴエモン 東海道中大江戸天狗り返しの巻 (Gunbare Goemon)
• クイズマジックアカデミ 6 (Quiz Academy 6)

If you've played these games on PlayStation 2 or Nintendo DS, you'll find these illustrations familiar. They are the in-game backgrounds the characters walk on. Many of the pieces have accompanying black and white line art.

The are is really beautiful. Unfortunately, they are a bit small as two to three are put to a page, with the line art. It's hard to enjoy the details compared to the larger full page paintings, which are gorgeous. Many of these look water colour painted to me. The mood created is fantastic.

My favourite piece is the aerial view of the castle from Quiz Academy 6. It feels so real, like that such a beautiful place really exist. And I've not even played that game before.

This book is recommended to background and video game artists.

Links:
More Kusanagi art books

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon Japan | YesAsia US | beNippon.com

If you buy from the links, I get a little commission that helps me get more books to feature.

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