Back in 2016 I reviewed an artbook titled Tsunako Art Works: Converves, for which it received a strong score of 8.5 out of 10. Featuring the work of artist Tsunako, who has worked with Compile Heart on many of their major series, this compilation featured 320 pages and more than 400 pieces of artwork from games including Hyperdimension Neptunia, Fairy Fencer F, Trinity Universe and Cross Edge. The light novel turned visual novel, anime and manga Date a Live was also featured in this collection, but only offered a paltry collection of artwork compared to Hyperdimension Neptunia. This isn’t too surprising considering that a lot of Tsunako’s work was done through her role as the light novel’s illustrator.
Offering more than 200 illustrations across 200+ pages, KADOKAWA last month published Date a Live Tsunako Artworks: Spirit (デート・ア・ライブ つなこ画集 SPIRIT), which compiles the work Tsunako provided for Date a Live across the light novels and other formats.
Composition
In terms of the original light novel series, Date a Live Tsunako Artworks: Spirit covers the first eleven volumes which were published from 2011 to 2014 – with volumes twelve and beyond presumably being saved for a future book. The first section of this artbook focuses on each light novel volume, going from earliest to latest, offering character artwork, black and white imagery and full-colour art created as the series progressed. This takes up a sizable portion of the book, up to page 117.
Comparably, the second, smaller section of this book is based on the short story collection Date a Live Encore. This section also features the same sorts of artwork across the first five volumes – with Volume 6 (released in December 2016) not included. The final chapter is Date a Live Mediamix, covering a range of items from full-page full-colour promotional artwork to concept designs for each character.
Overall, the contents have been laid out adequately enough, and does offer a good bounty of artwork from the print releases of Date a Live. That being said, this isn’t a complete compendium, so I would expect to see a second volume of this artbook in the coming years.
Content
Comparable to Tsunako’s previous artbook, Date a Live Tsunako Artworks: Spirit primarily showcases a wide variety of artwork which Tsunako has created for Date a Live over the years. Therefore, outside of the few pages which highlight concept artwork, a lot of what’s on offer are finished items which have been used in some shape or form. Provided you can read Japanese however, some of the artwork does have comments attached to them, or at the very least an indication of where they were used.
There is a good selection of artwork on offer, which in my opinion doesn’t disappoint in terms of either quality or quantity. Especially since the light novels have never received an official release in English, I found myself enjoying all the black and white content created for the novels just as much as the full-colour artwork.
In terms of character prominence, each character does have their chance to shine in Date a Live Tsunako Artworks: Spirit. As would be expected however, certain “main” characters including Tohka Yatogami, Kotori Itsuka and Origami Tobiichi do have more prominence than those introduced in later volumes. While the video-game exclusive characters do appear in the final “Mediamix” section, they are generally limited to just their character design and one or two pieces of promotional artwork they were included in. On that note, no CG Artwork from the Compile Heart video games are included in this collection.
As you should already be able to tell from the sample pages above, there is some fanservicey content on offer throughout the book – although not prominently displayed. Therefore, you should go into this book expecting some panty shots, cleavage and implied nudity.
Design
Date a Live Tsunako Artworks: Spirit is a softcover, A4 size artbook, and I personally have no qualms about the build quality of the book currently in my possession.
In terms of what is contained within its pages, I am for the most part satisfied with what was presented. Given how much art was drawn from the light novel, I had few qualms with the designers putting up to nine pieces of artwork onto one page – although wouldn’t have objected to that number going down to four. Most of the bigger full-colour artwork pieces were also presented well, although there were a few occasions where I felt a double-page spread may have been better handled with a single page (even if the artwork had to be turned 90-degrees). On many occasions I did like how they incorporated the comments on several pages to take advantage of otherwise blank space.
Extra Content
Tsunako is only the illustrator of Date a Live, with Koushi Tachibana serving as the light novel’s author. Giving them a chance to shine in this book, the final few pages are dedicated to a newly written novel composed by Tachibana. Not worth much if you don’t read Japanese, but regardless it is a nice addition.
Final Words
I found the Date a Live anime to be just above average, and if it wasn’t for my knowledge of Tsunako’s work on other franchises such as Hyperdimension Neptunia, I most probably wouldn’t have picked up a copy of this book. If I hadn’t, it would have been quite a shame since Date a Live Tsunako Artworks: Spirit offers a lot of great artwork within its pages. With a lot of Game CG and art from more recent volumes of the light novel yet to be covered, I hope to see another book like this in the future.
