[EVA] Groundwork of EVANGELION Vol. 1 -- Review

[MMKokusaiYK]

The original drawing collection "Groundwork of EVANGELION Vol. 1" was
released yesterday, and in a word -- awesome.

The light green A4 size artbook has three pencil sketches of Rei on the
front cover, and three of Asuka on the back cover. These sketches are by
Gainax art staff Hiramatsu Teiji(sp), and I do not think they have been
released before. At least I have never seen them. Further, something
that most people probably won't notice -- the cover sleeve and inner
book cover are different. There are two more sketches each of Rei and
Asuka on the inner book cover which are also fantastic.

The book starts out with a number of Eva posters by various Gainax art
staff that were used as magazine covers, CD jacket covers, etc. These
are laid out with the poster on the right-hand page and the matching
background sketch on the left-hand page. These sketches are the actual
cel background drawings used for the posters, and have color markings
and color pencil shading.

Next is a one page introduction by Anno, in which he waxes poetic about
capturing the beauty of an image in a single frame, and so on. He then
talks briefly about this original drawing collection -- the difficulty
of portraying a sequence flow with a single frame, apologizing for the
black-and-white layout and the condition of some of the images which may
have faded slightly or become dirtied over time.

The remaining 193 pages are filled with nothing but the cel background
drawings used in the opening film sequence and episodes 1 through 8.
(Hence, Vol. 1) The sketches are laid out in sequential order so the
overall flow resembles that of the filmbooks, except that there is *no*
text -- nor does there need to be. The drawings speak for themselves,
and are absolutely gorgeous. Any commentary would simply detract from
the whole.

The verdict?
Bochan_bird gives this artbook two thumbs up. In fact, I need extra
thumbs because this artbook is so nice. In all areas -- artwork, layout,
reference/historical value, etc. -- I give this artbook a perfect 10. In
fact, the only thing better I can think of would be to have the actual
cels/background drawings themselves. In terms of content I rate it at
least on a par or even slightly better than Sadamoto's DerMond art
collection.

Bochan_bird
"Recovering from a $1000+ anime shopping spree in Tokyo..." ^_^