There’s always a special appeal when cute guys wear traditional outfits like Japanese yukata. And it’s even better when they are both lovey dovey with each other :D
That’s one of the images grabbed from this boy’s love game artbook with illustrations by Yura-sensei 由良, first published in 2009. If you recognise them, they are Noton (Noten) and Akira from Miracle Noton, an 18+ BL game.
Title: Yura SuperPack!! Yura & Tennenouji Kaki Oroshi & SS Collection
由良SuperPack!! -由良&Tennenouji 描き下ろし&SS集-
Price: 2,500 Yen (w/o tax)
Note: Contains some explicit but mosaic censored images from various 18+ BL games illustrated by Yura-sensei.
This full-colour artbook is a compilation of all the short stories of Yura/Tennenouji’s 18+ BL games that were published for various BL/otome game magazines over the years (26 magazines). Along with them are the accompanying illustrations, as well as images created as special papers, CD covers, goods and so on.
The BL games include Lucky Dog 1 ラッキードッグ1 , Miracle Noton みらくるのーとん, Zettai Fukuju Meirei 絶対服従命令, Teikoku Sensenki 帝国千戦記, Enzai 冤罪, Laughter Land. Comments by Yura sensei about each image are included. Also contains 100 % “full complete” capture guides of Lucky Dog 1 and Miracle Noton games and special interview with Yura-sensei. There are also some new images created for this artbook, marrying Lucky Dog 1 and Miracle Noton characters.
Warning: Contains spoilers. Last section is the capture guide for Lucky Dog 1 and Miracle Noton with selected game CGs.
Divided into a few main sections:
1) Lucky Dog 1 Gallery + Short stories,
2) Miracle Noton Gallery + Short stories,
3) Langmaor 郎猫儿 works: Enzai, Teikoku Sensenki, Zettai Fukuju Meirei and Laughter Land Gallery + Short stories,
4) Complete capture guides of Lucky Dog 1 and Miracle Noton games,
5) Interview and sketches
The A4 sized artbook is about 143 pages and in full colour. The book jacket has a glossy finishing typical of similar artbooks. Here’s the front and back cover of the artbook without the strip. The cover is a newly created image that has Gian Carlo ジャン・カルロ from Lucky Dog 1 holding up Noton のーとん from Miracle Noton, the notebook that summons semes when you write the name in it lol~ If I’m not wrong, this game popped up during the Death Note craze :D
The book cover and back is as shown below. Typical monotone cover. The first two pages are illustrations of Lucky Dog 1 characters. Well, if only all the illustrations are presented in their full-page glory… however it is not the case. But otherwise they probably won’t be able to squeeze so many images into this collection. I don’t really like it when they spread out a horizontal image into two vertical pages cos it cuts the image into half. Print quality is great though.
There are a total of 6 short stories of all the main characters compiled from magazines such as Cool-B Magazine for Lucky Dog 1. They also come with the stories’ magazine-only illustrations. Not game CGs. I cropped the provocative image of Ivan Fiore x Gian (left) at the bottom, if not it is definitely not safe for work ^^;;
The short stories are written by a number of authors, including 陣内, 菅沼恭司 and sub-edited by Tennenouji. And *cough* thanks to BLCDs and BL manga, sex scenes are the easiest to understand :D Quite enjoyable to read. Anyway, it’s generally easy to look up the words since they’re printed text. Take this as an exercise to practice Japanese reading ^^;;
There’s also a beautiful collection of various artworks and magazine cover illustrations in the Lucky Dog 1 section. All of them showcase Yura-sensei’s unique way of colouring and energetic style. They tried to layout all the images upright, even for landscape images… I mean I seriously don’t mind turning my artbook 90 degrees to see them in full without having them cut-off in the middle. Sigh. Accompanying each image are comments by Yura-sensei and where the image was first published.
Yura-sensei said in the interview at the end of the book that the art direction for Lucky Dog 1 artwork is that they have to convey a feeling of motion and action. And they sure did! One of the challenges she faced was coming up with the hair styles for the boys and their clothing designs since she is restricted to prison wear lol~ Awesome results in the end.
I think this is a quite a good collection for people who got into these BL games late and missed out on the back issues of Cool-B and Princess Note magazine, etc. That said, I also don’t buy every issue of these magazines either, since it is not cheap to import and the content may be repetitive.
The following images are just some of the many Cool-B magazine covers, rare special papers as well as shop-only tokuten (freebie) telephone card designs, etc, featured in this artbook.
The next section, is Miracle Noton.
According to the interview, art direction for Miracle Noton is that they have to be “bright”! And the results are indeed bright and happy. This is one of the cute Summer festival yukata-donning illustration of Noton in human form and Akira the main uke protagonist. I love the use of colours in all the artwork she did for Miracle Noton here. But I have to confess that I haven’t played the game though :)
There are 7 short stories written by 斉藤伊里 included with various accompanying illustrations.
I find Miracle Noton’s artwork really fun, cute and uplifting. Such a pity they were all crammed together into the limited nunber of pages along with the comments. If they were full-page illustrations, it’ll be truly awesome.
These are CD Jackets of Miracle Noton BLCDs as well as the game’s Oyasumi (Good Night) series. So the boys become adorable sheep. The Oyasumi CD is about how Akira the uke is being sexually harassed by the semes at night even though they’re supposed to help him sleep by counting sheep lol~
Next up is the section for Langmaor works.
There’s one Enzai short story and one Teikoku Sensenki short story both written by ゆうまand 11 Zettai Fukuju Meirei short stories written by ゆりの菜櫻 with illustrations by Yura-sensei. I didn’t complete Enzai. Too dark and gloomy. I haven’t played Teikoku Sensenki but read that it has very good reviews.
Can’t help including this pervy cropped pic of a masochistic uke character, Lawless Streich in Zettai Fukuju Meirei. The original page is super NSFW. For unexplained reasons, I find him very hot when I played the game ^^;; I’m pretty much a do-S (ドS) when it comes to characters like him.
The game was quite entertaining and funny at some points. Generally, you have a choice of playing two main characters, Kia WelBehenna (short hair goggles guy) and Louise Hardwich (long haired guy) who are tasked to bed their targets. They can be seme or uke to the target characters depending on the choices you make. This is a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously and quite comedic :D I haven’t read through all these short stories yet.
More short scenarios.
Including Laughter Land compiled by Cool-B and 微熱王子. Haven’t played Laughter Land before either. Next up is more information about Lucky Dog 1. There’s a page introducing and giving short summaries of each character.
Followed by 8-page capture guides for all character routes of Lucky Dog boys.
As well as 6-page capture guide for Miracle Noton games and fan disk.
I never knew Miracle Noton was so pervy. It has such a cutesy artwork :D
Then we get to see Yura-sensei’s choice of her favourite CG in Lucky Dog 1 and her interview about creating the character designs and artwork for Lucky Dog 1, comparing the style between Miracle Noton, etc. as well as future plans for continuation for Lucky Dog 1. Judging from recent updates, we’re probably going to see the fan disk “Bad Egg” released this year.
Finally, some rough sketches. I enjoy looking at sketches cos it gives you a glimpse of the creating process :D
Last page of credits.
Conclusion: Hmm… depends on the individual. It is refreshing to see the artwork compiled in this collection. It’s a pity that most of them are not full-page prints. As for the short stories, they will probably become a fun and useful tool for Japanese reading practice :D
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Lately, I’ve JUST found out about Lucky Dog and Lucky Dog Blast (the manga) and it’s awesome!!!!!! XDD I fell in love at first sight and couldn’t help but get addicted to it! Unfortunately, I can’t read Japanese at all … if not I would’ve LOVE to buy that book!! XD
@Nekokratik: It has lots of pics and the stories are nice to read! One day you’ll learn Japanese and will be able to enjoy the game fully :D
Oooh yes, it was a very peculiar mix of ups and downs, too bad the “downs” were all in the “hotter” scenes, aha. I’m incredibly picky with art and since the game play was annoying me (when I finally got the A ending on Anel’s, I literally raged like a madman) I just gave up, even if it was for sure very comical and interesting.
Bernardo looks plenty fine o’right : D However I won’t dwell into it much as I just spent my last monies on Kazuma’s pre-order, tsh. Money should be earned faster ; >
@Oru: I don’t think I would’ve lasted long if I didn’t have a capture guide ^^;; although I used to think that I should try to play these visual novels through by my own but I just don’t have the luxury of time to patiently try all the combination of choices.
Yeah… money… or the lack of it (T_T)
I like Yura’s cheerful and shota-moe-ish style. It fits the comedy BL games well, though for Enzai, it seems pretty cruel for cute young boys to be tortured… u___u;
I’d like to see that NSFW illustration though…*snickers*
I’m really interested in Miracle Noton. The first time I saw the commercial preview of it on Youtube, my guess was right on the game having to do with a ‘magical book’ :DDD
@hirochan: I think Enzai is quite a difficult topic to illustrate *_* I definitely prefer her brighter and happier looking pics.
Here ya go ~ NSFW: http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/9/coughd.jpg
According to Oru, you write ecchi things into the book, a seme will be summoned to do it to you lol~
I love you so much for reviewing this!!*3*
It’s such a shame that Miracle Noton is crammed up on few pages.
Most of the artworks i’ve seen in the regular Miracle Noton artbook except for a few. like the brother in dress(lol), friend in maid outfit, the one in the big picture and Santa Noton aww~! I especially love the illustration on the back of the book. My favorite game by Yura~<3
Teikoku Sensenki is one of the games i have yet to play. I remember downloading it and i started it but i looked really confusing for me.;
@sigma: yeah it looked like they squeezed a lot of stuff into this book. Are the artworks bigger and full-page in your miracle noton artbook? I like the miracle noton ones in this artbook a lot ^^
I read that Teikoku Sensenki is good but the game play is very long so it’ll definitely be better if we had a capture guide.
FFFFFFFFFF- DO WANT.
Unfortunately… I can’t buy it.
-adds artbook to to-buy list-
Great review!
So far, I only played Enzai, Absolute Obedience and Lucky Dog1. Well, lucky dog1 I never bothered to finish the game. :(
Enzai was the very first BL game I played. I sorta enjoyed it. But I only went for Durer’s ending instead. And his ending is one of the bad endings. Lul. He was the only appealing one to me. As for Absolute Obedience, I didn’t finish it too. Only went through with a couple of routes and that’s it. Some of them… -shudders- I don’t want to think about it. :(
Anyways, although the images are squashed together, I still like it. :D It’s fun, colorful and full of life. XD
@Jes: Thanks! :D I skipped Enzai after an hour or so into the game. I think it was my first BL game too. Can’t remember exactly since it’s been a while. I was a total newbie. The game’s atmosphere was too depressing ^^;; Absolute Obedience was my 2nd or 3rd. It was illogical and silly indeed! I like the main characters (and I had a capture guide) so I tried to finish all the routes :P
Yeah, it’s quite an enjoyable artbook too look at, I especially liked the Miracle Noton ones.
Lovely artbook indeed! One of the things I like about the artist is how everything looks so… lively and colored and uplifting.
The only game I have is Absolute Obedience, however, due to the game-play and bad anatomy most times (the thighs, they KILLED me inside), I had a hard time having fun with it and just put the game aside after making a walk through for all of Anel’s endings and playing with military guy.
I’m really glad to see the artist has made a long way since then ( no more monster thighs, yeeey ;ww;) and has improved tons. The Lucky Dog 1 charas also look quite handsome, no wonder people have been trying to lurk me into that dark side, ah.
@Oru: Totally killed me when I played Absolute Obedience too! I had to avert my eyes at the shocking thunder thighs and fleshy bottoms OTL. Fortunately none of that existed in this artbook :D It was one of my first BL games and I knew almost nil Japanese at that time. I read good reviews about it so I kept going. A capture guide helped so I finished the game but there was one best ending with the Arabian prince I just couldn’t complete after repeated tries, so I gave up in the end ^^;; Overall the silly CGs and comedy were quite entertaining.
Yeah, Lucky Dog 1 boys look very good! I was a little apprehensive when I ordered the game but phew~ it was okay! lol~
hmm…was never fond of Yura’s artwork, not that it’s bad or anything, just feels very artificial to me. Interesting to see Laughter Land being included in the artbook since Yuzuki Ichi did the artwork for it. I suppose it’s because Langmoar developed the game.
speaking of which don’t play miracle no ton! Basically the notebook grants horny wishes, so the main character writes something, and from then on u have smut scenes for the rest of the game >.>
Personally I love Yuzuki Ichi’s artwork, she did the art for Kannagi No Tori and Laughter Land. Also to mention Carnelian’s artwork, she did the art for Messiah. Should try out those games xD
@chibi: I prefer her later works like miracle noton and lucky dog 1 :D Especially miracle noton, now that I’ve seen this artbook. Hmm I didn’t know about Laughter Land’s artist. No wonder there’s only one of two pics of Laughter Land. The illustration included is what she drew for a illustration comment corner in Cool-b. It’s kinda like fan-art cos she mentioned the original artist in her message.
lol~ ah~ so that’s what Miracle Noton is about XDD I didn’t have time, so I didn’t make the extra effort to get/play the game ^^;;
I saw some work created by Yuzuki Ichi and Carnelian. They look fantastic! Yeah we should try them out! Need more time *_*