White Fairy: Kudryavka Noumi Photo Album

Artbook Review

Kud

I have decided that I would do something a little bit different this weekend and rather than review anime or video games, I would go through my small collection of artbooks and pick out a couple of them to review at random. These will include ones currently available to the English-language market such as titles from Udon Entertainment, while others will be imported and/or out of print releases. These are all designed to be mini-reviews and not the length you may have seen in my review of the Persona Design Compendiums for example.

The first title on my list is an imported book by the name of White Fairy: Kudryavka Noumi Photo Album which I picked up with a couple of other Little Busters related goodies and art books a while back.  Little Busters! is a visual novel released by the team at KEY several years ago, and has a bit of history on The Otaku’s Study by being the first visual novel ever reviewed – using the fan-translated edition by Team Fluffy (Although to be fair the translation was only at the half-way point back then). If you fancy reading the review I wrote all the way back in 2010, click HERE.

But back to business. I think I may have mentioned once or twice that my favorite arc in Little Busters! was the one surrounding Yuiko Kurugaya, but as she never recieved a spin-off title her official artwork has to date pretty much been confined to Little Busters! oriented artbooks. As Kudryavka Noumi (Who had an arc that was fortunately improved upon in LB: Ecstasy) has received her own spin-off title in Japan “Kud Wafter” which was also recently ported over to the Playstation Portable as an “All-ages” edition by the team at Prototype, in-game artwork from both visual novels as well as a wealth of additional artwork was compiled into this approximately 100 page book.

I actually purchased this not expecting what I found, but while there is nothing explicitly “eroge” in this book, given that Kud Wafter did originate as an 18+ eroge visual novel and this artbook was published back in 2010… there are some pages that do contain sexually suggestive content. However these are generally limited to the foldout at the front of the book and a couple of pieces of artwork and CG pieces at the back – nipple shots and panty flashes are included in the mix however. The balance between in-game artwork and external artwork is decent, and many of the double-page spreads would entail two or more pieces of in-game artwork sourced from either game on one side and a piece of artwork depicting Kud (Occasionally with another character or characters) on the other. Full double-page spreads of artwork are also prevalent for a number of landscape pieces of artwork.

Other characters that feature in the artbook are sourced from both Little Busters! itself, and characters from the spin-off Kud Wafter. But overall the variety is there and the layout is pretty good, although if you had acquired the book just for the art be forewarned that a couple of the double-page spreads consist of a single image on one side and a comment with a plain white background on the other.

As I said, there is no actual “eroge” content in this artbook, but in some cases the artwork still remains. This is generally confined to the last few pages of the book, but on a back-to-back page on one side you would have the fully-clothed version of the image and turning the page over would be the same image although creatively “torn” to highlight the exact same position but usually in undergarments instead of regular clothes.

In addition to the majority of the book which is the actual artwork, the book also contains a couple of extra surprises to the mix. The book features a brief profile on Kud, her stats and a few other features, a double-page spread titled “All About Kudryavka” which features 33 questions about herself with answers written like the character had written the responses herself. As it is all in Japanese I have yet to have time to translate the responses – but the page is done up cutely. Finally there is an index of artwork, which spanning over four pages details where all the artwork was sourced from (Many of which were from the PC editions of Little Busters! and Kud Wafter) and is pretty commonplace for an artbook to have.

While I was able to identify some spaces where artwork would have been better put enlarged or with something else to fill in the gaps, the layout was solid for an artbook. In addition, the print quality came across pretty well, with no notable issues in my copy. Overall, while I could have done without the riskier content in the book (I shall maintain my stance that storyline is at the very least equally important to visuals in a visual novel), as a book itself it was a pretty nice way of summing up the character of Kud. Oh… and I quite liked the last artwork in the book, which featured a look into the future of protagonist Riki Naoe and Kudryavka Noumi.

White Fairy: Kudryavka Noumi Photo Album was published by Ascii Media Works on the 10th March 2010 for a listed price of 1,800 yen. The book features artwork from two KEY series veterans, Hinoue Itaru and Na-Ga. Both were present in the production of Kud Wafter as co-art directors.

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

Articles

- Advertisment -