Shinozuka Atsuto “Queen’s Gate” Majikina Mina artbook

Although it was already released in November last year, hadn’t caught onto any scans for the “Queen’s Gate” Majikina Mina book until recently.

Illustrated by artist Shinozuka Atsuto, this particular “Queen’s Gate” book is all about Majikina Mina (真鏡名 ミナ), the shapely silver-haired archer from the “Samurai Showdown V” game.

Wasn’t too familiar with Shinozuka Atsuto’s work, next to single illustrations have mostly seen “Shin Koihime†Musou” images from this artist. Nonetheless, am quite fond of Mina who boasts a lovely character design.

This “Queen’s Gate” book proved to be an excellent artbook, I do like most of the illustrations contained in it, some are really terrific renditions of Majikina Mina.

Still, there’s quite a bit of difference in my personal preference and reception of the various illustrations contained in the book, while I really adore some, there’s also several feel like they could have been better.

Perhaps could attribute that impression to the fact Shinozuka Atsuto rendered Mina with an impressively large bust size… but Mahiru Izumi did the same for Mai Shiranui and Tasuku Iizuki for Iroha in those two their respective “Queen’s Gate” books.

In fact rather think it’s probably the way Shinozuka Atsuto opted to draw Mina’s top, showing a significant amount of underboob. While for several illustrations this adds a nice teasing atmosphere, in some it just doesn’t come over as well.

Wonder how it would have looked if the artist had rendered Mina’s shape a bit more sleek and powerful, with slightly increased thigh and abdomen muscle definition which fits her character better. A bit like how Kawata Hisashi portrayed Mina.

Being a “Queen’s Gate” book, of course more daring imagery featuring suspiciously convenient clothing malfunctions can not be omitted and there’s several very enticing ones included, like the illustrations you see above and below.

As an archer, suspect Mina is not an easy character to draw an entire book of compared to characters using close range weapons, but Shinozuka Atsuto achieved to portray Mina with plenty of dynamic poses.

Appreciate how several images of Mina feature a frozen pose where she’s shown just waiting to spring into action and fire off an arrow from her tightly drawn bow.
This image of Mina jumping and ready to fire while upside down is quite unique as well.

While am fan of Mina’s character design, was never much into her small animal companion Chample, so it was a relief to see it only appears in a few of the illustrations.

Actually the artist cleverly used Chample to cover strategic parts that would else be exposed in some images.

Really nice to see a “Queen’s Gate” book of such a visually appealing character, so fans of Majikina Mina might certainly be interested in this artbook.

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