Kantoku C77 doujin ‘Hiragi’

After the ’5年 Memorial’ book at C76 and the recent publication of the commercial artbook ‘Ashiato’, well known artist Kantoku from the circle “Afterschool of The 5th Year” (5年目の放課後) released the ‘Hiragi’ doujin at Comiket 77.

About 20 pages thick, it features several gorgeous full page color illustrations, a few manga style pages and a fair number of pages filled with sketches that include a short explanation text, making it a very diverse book.

Although looking at the majority of the color illustrations, ‘Hiragi’ reminds me more of ‘Kage’ from C73 than ‘Check x Check’ from C75.

While the main theme in ‘Check x Check’ was clothing checkered patterns, ‘Hiragi’ has several illustrations that show an incredible play of light and shadow, much like in ‘Kage’ which was a stunning collection of art that had a unique atmosphere due to how Kantoku used light and shadow in them.

While some may lament the lack of full color art for pages filled with black and white line art, personally do like seeing such examples of this sketch phase from artworks that Kantoku previously published or that were included in the ‘Hiragi’ doujin itself.

Would even go further and say it’s a shame many of those line art drawings are combined together on a single page instead of receiving a full page to themselves, for most are just as amazing to see in black and white as in their colored version.

Below illustration is a great example of why I adore Kantoku’s art, such mastery of rendering cute girls. This cute bespectacled maiden is simply irresistible!

Some artists never cease to amaze me. Many have a unique, recognizable style and through their own individual style the way they draw such anime style art always has a different yet definite impact on me.

Had to include below illustration of Fate from “Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS” in her ‘shin sonic’ form, an amazing and surprising artwork. The subdued color palette of is nicely offset by Fate’s energetic pose and a daring view angle.

The book also contains the black and white line art version of this illustration. It’s quite interesting to see both versions, the sketch has its own charm and typical atmosphere while the colors in the final version add such dimension.

Originally said I wasn’t going to buy any C77 goods, but am very tempted to pick up Kantoku’s book anyway.

While it does contain black and white pages with the sketches as well as some nsfw art, do think it’s more interesting than the average doujin that has a largely black and white h story in it instead.

You can always catch scans of this book at Moe Imouto if you want to sample the rest of the art in it which also includes some illustrations from ‘Ashiato’.
(One might observe the title used at Moe Imouto is ‘Hiiragi’, but I chose to put ‘Hiragi’ as it was printed as such on the pages of the doujin.)