Book Review: デビルサバイバー2 公式設定資料集 Devil Survivor 2 Official Design Works

This is Devil Survivor 2 Official Design Works, the art book for Nintendo DS game Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2, known in Japan as Devil Survivor (デビルサバイバー2).

The story of the game is about Japanese high school students receiving emails that can foretell deaths. These students would have to avoid the deaths while dueling with mysterious demons. All these happen over eight days. You can read more on Wikipedia.

The book's a 160-page paperback. The paper is quite thick. There are five chapters.

Chapter 1 is a day by day account of how the story unfolds. It's the overview of the plot with explanations on why they are happening.

Chapter 2 features the concept art and profiles of the 15 characters. There's the character art as they appear in the game, and also concept sketches for poses, costumes and expressions. Each character has only 4 pages of art so that's not much. What's more interesting is the character profiles that talks about their roles and the interaction between other characters, details about demon fusion, horoscope, treasures and other game specific information.

Chapter 3 covers the designs for a group of creatures called the Septentrion (セプテントリオン). These are interesting enemies because they don't look like enemies at all, more like some sort of emblem. The designs are unusual and they remind me of the enemies from Neon Genesis Evangelion (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン), but simpler in design. The first one called Dohbe (ドゥベ) looks like an ice-cream cone.

Chapter 4 covers the environment art. The illustrations are art from the game for places like Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and other places. They are beautiful but printed a bit small, with some pages having up to 10 pieces. Also in this chapter are the storyboards and interviews with the designers.

The last chapter is short and covers the five different endings of the game with miniature screenshots.

This is a great visual companion to the game, with the highlight being the informative commentary. Writeup are all in Japanese though.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon Japan | Play-asia.com | CDJapan.co.jp | Yesasia.com

Visit Amazon to check out more reviews.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon Japan | Play-asia.com | CDJapan.co.jp | Yesasia.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.