Namie-kun's 2012 phantasmagoria Touhou Project Fanbook vol. 2 review

Ehehe, I'm late to the boat. I think I received this in February. Unfortunately, since I did not check my dA as often as I used to, I missed out on my postal batch. No matter, it just came a few days later from Namie in WA.

She did a doodle on my envelope! T^T 

I was so happy when I received this. I pre-ordered it in November and received it in February. The book had a limited 250 print run (from what I remember, and if you can call it that). The book was $27 + $6 for registered shipping within Australia.

I met Namie last year when she came to Smash. I cosplayed at Blue Reimu whilst she also cosplayed Reimu~ I was was pleasantly surprised she remembered me:D

It's Namie! Look at the height difference:/

Pre-order goodies. I was order #62. The year before I was #4 haha.

She gave me a Reisen doodle:DD

Inside of the book

The book contains full page illustrations as well as WIPs (as shown above), guest art, competition winners, and her trademark humour throughout. I loved the last few pages that introduced the illustrators and contributors. Full of lulz.

Cover of the book

Back of the book

To be honest, I wasn't as impressed by the quality of the guest art this time around. Sure, I liked the artists that were featured, but they just didn't seem as /epic/ as the last book and it wasn't up to the standard as the rest of Namie's book. As much as I enjoyed the idea of the contest in the book, I'd rather see more illustrations from Namie herself (I'm being selfish now aren't I?).

After I got this book, I pulled out her first one and compared the styles. Namie has developed a lot in the last year. When I first watched her in early 2007/ 2008 I thought she had a very unique style and I'm glad to see she has put a lot of time and effort into developing something that is uniquely hers. Unlike a lot of "well-known" dA/ pixiv artists, I can't really see who she's channelling a lot of the time (e.g., Minami --> Pixel Phantom, PeaCh --> Noizi Ito, KD --> Ryohka). Shinkai Makoto in her backgrounds?

Her imagination is really inspiring and it makes me want to pick up my tablet and draw every time I see her rainbow illustrations.

5/5 A +++ to you Namie:)

TL;DR: All in all, another beautiful book from Namie. I remember she said her computer crashed and deleted a few pictures so she had to re-draw them. It was well worth the price. I hope she keeps her passion for drawing for a long time, and continues to strive for improvement.