Book Review: Evangelion Chronicle: Illustrations

Evangelion Chronicle: Illustrations features the art from the Evangelion Chronicle series, Side A and Side B books, both in Japanese.

The first edition of Evangelion Chronicle: Illustrations was published in 2008 in Japanese featuring Rei Ayanami on the cover. The revised edition was published in 2011 featuring Asuka in her red suit. This edition translated by Udon is of the revised edition, even though it has the Rei cover art.

This is a huge paperback artbook measuring 10 by 13 inches. It has 136 pages.

The illustrations are based on the original Evangelion series. So you won't get to see Asuka with her pirate eye patch here.

There are two parts to the book. The anime style comes first and covers the characters including the EVAs and ANGELs. It's mostly finalized art with sketches. Besides the three main protagonists, the other characters each have only one page to themselves. I would love to see more of the character designs from different angles and poses though, so the character art feels quite limited in a sense. The characters are drawn by Youichi Fukano while the EVAs and ANGELs are by Hirofumi Ichikawa.

The second part features the painted scenes. Several artists have artworks here so while the designs are fixed, the styles can vary quite a bit. I like the ones from Takuya Io that looks like the TV series screenshots but with a certain glow and film grain added. There are pieces with rather un-Evangelion look because of the way they are painted.

There's not much text except for the one page where all the artists talk about their art and inspiration.

Overall, the art is great and it's a cool book for all Evangelion fans.

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The book's a review copy from Udon Entertainment.

Evangelion Chronicle: Illustrations is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

エッセンシャルエヴァンゲリオン・クロニクル side A (Evangelion Chronicle Side A)

エッセンシャルエヴァンゲリオン・クロニクル side B (Evangelion Chronicle Side B)

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