Artbook: Spray & Nitro+Chiral Official Collaboration (Kichiku Megane, STEAL!, Togainu, Lamento)

Spray’s Gakuen Heaven 学園ヘヴン semes Lamento cosplay! :D Can you spot who they are?

Lots of pics after the cut! ( ^_^)/

Delectable characters from Spray and Nitro+CHiRAL BL games now in one artbook!

Title: Spray & Nitro+CHiRAL Official Collaboration -Supu☆Kira- (Super Character?)
Spray & Nitro+CHiRAL 公式コラボレーションブック　-スプ☆キラ-
Price: 1,575 Yen (w/tax)
Expected release date: 31 Mar 2011
Official site: http://www.b-boy.jp/hotnews/spchira/
Rating: No 18+ pics. Safe for general viewing.
Total pages: 97 (46 full-colour pages that contain artwork)

The planned collaboration artbook is finally going to be published! Boy’s Love publisher Libre did a fan survey back in early 2010 to vote for their favourite Spray and Nitro+CHiRAL characters if they were to appear in the same artbook… the results of the survey will be shown in this resulting artbook soon!

Hopefully there’ll be new artworks created for this artbook. However, I don’t expect to see anything 18+ to be included in this collaboration.

We can expect characters from Spray’s popular BL games: Gakuen Heaven 学園ヘヴン, Kichiku Megane 鬼畜眼鏡 and STEAL! The games’ original illustrators are 氷栗 優, みささぎ楓李 and 赤名芽衣子 respectively.

For Nitro+CHiRAL, we can expect to see Togainu no Chi 咎狗の血, Lamento -BEYOND THE VOID- and sweet pool. The games’ original illustrators are たたなかな and オニツカセージ.

According to the marketing text, this is the first time that there’s a crossover collaboration among BL game titles. There will be 12 new crossover illustrations by the original illustrators as well as an 18-page manga!

Illustrators involved in this collaboration are: Spray’s Higuri You (氷栗 優), Misasagi Fuuri みささぎ楓李, Akana Meiko 赤名芽衣子 and Nitro+Chiral’s Yamada Uirou 山田外朗, Onitsuka Seiji オニツカセージ and Yu-pon ゆーぽん.(Yay~ I love to see Yu-pon’s take on Spray’s characters :D )

Game characters take a trip to one another’s game universe!? Collaboration 18-page manga will be created by Higuri You, Misasagi Fuuri, 赤名芽衣子, 山田外朗 and Onitsuka Seiji.

Cross talk between Spray and Nitro_CHiRAL creators and special guests Yura (由良), 高星麻子 Illustrator for Hakushaku to Yousei series 伯爵と妖精 and Matsumoto Temari of Kyou Kara Maoh (松本テマリ) will also contribute their illustrations!

Collaboration titles included are:
Spray’s Gakuen Heaven 「学園ヘヴン」, Kichiku Megane 「鬼畜眼鏡」and 「STEAL!」
Nitro+CHiRAL’s Togainu no Chi 「咎狗の血」, 「Lamento-BEYOND THE VOID-」 and 「sweet pool」

19 April 2011: Artbook Review!

Front and Back of the artbook with the jacket on. The book cover is glossy finish.

Jacket and slip removed. Front cover in pink. Quite usual fare. Cover is thick paper used in most artbooks. Nothing extraordinary.

Back of artbook jacket and cover. Pink too!

First page… *flips the pages in anticipation* Love the electric pink!

Quick montage of the games featured.

Contents page. After flipping through the artbook, you’ll realise that they cheated with the number of black title pages in this book that do not contain artwork OTL. Although I have to admit the layout looks good.

And also cheating with the one full page of text-only intro of the artist who created the collaboration artwork. Complaints aside, the artwork is delicious! Definitely something we’ve never seen before.

Created by You Higuri who originally illustrated Spray’s Gakuen Heaven 学園ヘヴン. Her take on Makoto from Nitro+CHiRAL’s Sweet Pool and Gakuen Heaven’s semes cosplay Lamento! :D Can you spot who they are?

These are artwork by Nitro+CHiRAL’s Yamada Uirou. Gakuen Heaven’s Nakajima looks pretty hot in black Togainu no Chi military uniform next to Shiki in white! XD And awesome Kichiku Megane take! Featuring megane Akira and Keisuke with lots of screwdrivers! How appropriate! Lol~ Btw, they spelt “Glass” as “Grass” OTL.

Next up another 4 pages kinda wasted OTL;;; Granted they provide information about the artist and works as well as the games and characters these collaboration artworks are based on… but… oh well.

Hotness in Spray Saeki Katsuya x Nitro+CHiRAL Shiki and Sweet pool cosplay by Kichiku Megane characters by Spray’s Misasagi Fuuri.

Next up, Sweet Pool’s artist Onitsuka Seiji’s take on Tetsuo (who does wear a megane in his original setting) and STEAL!’s kichiku character Kiryu. On the right, Sweet Pool boys cosplay as STEAL! characters. I love them!

I’m still griping on the 4 nearly blank pages… lol ^^;;

Akana Meiko, Spray’s STEAL! artist. How does maid nekomimi Asuka alongside Konoe look? :D STEAL! characters cosplay Togainu no Chi!

And yippie for Nitro+CHiRAL’s Yupon. You can see my eyes becoming two big heart marks when I saw these chibis. Spray’s Midou Takanori chibified! Totally cute. Looks like cat-eared riding hood with that basket of goodies and red wine (his fav) with big cat Rai looking on. And Lamento boys in Gakuen Heaven BL Gakuen uniforms! :D Seriously diabetes inducing stuff. Asato x yellow flower <3

Commentary pages by the artists with their sketches.

Yet another black title page OTL.

Introduction of works by Spray. It’s a must have feature for newbies to the game. I’m glad they kept these concise and snappy without taking up too many pages. Some game CGs but no 18+ stuff.

And introduction of works by Nitro+CHiRAL.

Libre conducted a questionaire for the fans and this section is devoted to the results. The questions include: games you’ve played before, which is their favourite Spray/Nitro+CHiRAL game and characters, etc.

1) Top left: Characters in both companies games that you’re surprised that you liked?
2) Top right: Who would make the best rivals from both companies games?
3) Bottom left: Who in Nitro+CHiRAL’s games would you want to wear the megane from Kichiku Megane? (Lol~ Drinking Togainu’s Line + wearing megane is the most formidable combination) XD and
4) Bottom right: Which Spray character do you want to see having nekomimi (cat ears)?

1) Top left: Which Nitro+CHiRAL couple will most likely win the Gakuen MVP in Gakuen Heaven?
2) Top right: Which Spray character will most probably win the Igura game in Togainu no Chi?

What kind of activities will the boys from STEAL! and Sweet pool come up with if there was a combined Cultural Festival by their schools? The top vote was drama play followed by butler cafe and ghost house :D

Quick list of all the characters in the games. And another black title page OTL.

Recognise the styles by guest artists? :D Love the refreshing takes on these familiar characters.

Yummy ukes from Sweet pool (Youji) and Gakuen Heaven (Saionji).

Matsumoto Temari’s Rai and Kei are hot!

Droolz :3~

Collaboration manga by different artists. First by Akane Meiko doing sweet pool x STEAL! crossover.

Onitsuka Seiji STEAL! x sweet pool crossover.

Yamada Uirou doing Gakuen Heaven x Lamento Crossover.

Higuri You’s Lamento x Gakuen Heaven crossover.

Misasagi Fuuri’s Togainu no Chi x Kichiku Megane crossover.

Yamada Uirou’s Kichiku megane x Togainu no Chi crossover.

Leading up to the interviews.

Questions were posed to Spray characters and their answers were given based on their personality.
1) You’re taking part in Togainu no Chi’s Igura battle. What weapon and battle plan do you have?
2) In Lamento’s world, the Libika race has ears and tail. Which person close do you do you want to have the ears?
3) In Sweet pool, the characters have to choose between rational and instinct in their love relationship. How do you act when you’re in a relationship?

Nitro+CHiRAL characters are asked questions based on the Spray setting too.
1) Each one of STEAL!’s characters have their own special abilities. What special ability do you want to have?
2) Keita from Gakuen Heaven has very strong luck. Who in your opinion is very lucky?
3) If you get your hands on the glasses in Kichiku Megane, what do you want to do when you wear it? Akira typically answers: Nothing in particular and Shiki says: Stupid (question) ^^;; Tetsuo: Not interested.

Spray and Nitro+CHiRAL creators crosstalk, postscript and credits.

Comments:
Phew~ sorry about the mass pic post. I’m definitely glad I got my hands on this artbook cos of the new artwork, manga and interesting articles! I mean they cheated a little with those full-page title pages and so on but for 1,500 Yen, I think it’s quite a sweet artbook to have :)

They really should do more of these collaborations!