Urusei Yatsura Art Book Review!
Before I get into the review, I want to gush about how much I adore this book, the series as a whole, and its characters! I started watching the 2022 anime, after seeing a clip of it. The art style is so cute and very colorful!
Prepare for a long read!
I've been keeping up with this series a lot lately, I recommend it if you like slice-of-life mixed with some silliness (and great animation)! Recently, I started watching the original series, which is just as amazing as this one- there's also things that weren't shown (yet?) in the 2022 version of the series. I would like to read the original manga soon, too!
Alright,
Time for the book review! Please note that I'm not showing things in any particular order, and that I'm mainly going to be talking about how cool stuff is lol. I got the book from Ebay (that's what I use the most), and it arrived safe and sound a few weeks later.
The cover art is really cute, especially with the two chibis on the bottom left! I really love how they went about shading Lum's hair in this iteration of the character. I don't have any translations for anything in this book, unfortunately, but we can still appreciate the art!
Upon opening the book, there is a poster that unfolds- above is the front:
And here is the back! The art on both sides is really charming, and the backgrounds are absolutely stunning, especially in that front image. There's just something about it that I really like, from Ataru and Lum's interaction, and the lighting: it works together so well!
On the flipside, all of the characters running is really fun to look at- each character is running (or flying) in a different way, it's subtle, but it shows a small piece of their personality, in a sense.
This is the page before the character design section of the book, which is absolutely stunning: The artists use a lot of patterns and shapes, and I'm all here for it!
Here are some snippets from the character design portion:
One thing I really enjoy about character design is the expressions, and the various outfits the characters are drawn in. Each character has their own unique sense of fashion! I like Ataru's clothing choice, it's stuff that I could see myself wearing- comfy long sleeved tops and simple, cute button downs!
The expressions are so cutesy and cartoonish, I can't get enough of it! As a character artist myself, these pages are great references on how to go about fleshing out my own characters.
Here is Lum's character sheet, as well as the expression part of Mendo's- his expressions are extra silly so I added them!
This art for the Highlight and Staff Interviews are super cute! Lum's outfit with the suspenders is adorable- and the fact Ataru's outfit is coordinated makes it all the more cute!
The visuals for the opening and endings are stunning- I have to sit and watch them each time, plus the music that accompanies it makes it even better! I need to go back and watch it frame by frame, its a masterpiece~ I can't get over the use of color in this series, it's amazing!!! Take a closer look at the visuals here, it's worth it!
You know what, watch the first Opening/Ending here
And the second Opening/Ending here
And check out the channel I got these from (UruYatsu Sensei), they've got full episodes of another series by the same creator, Maison Ikkoku, and a few Urusei Yatsura episodes as well. I appreciate them uploading these, because all the other ones were those interpolated 60 FPS nonsense (ugh).
That's all I got for this review, I hope you enjoyed reading/looking at all the art here, If you're an art book enjoyer like me, I recommend getting this book! And check out the series (OG and 2022 ver.) if you're interested!
Thanks for reading! (Back of book illustration below)
-Imp
