Book Review: KIKANETSU: The Art of DaisukeRichard
This book was published in 2018 and the Japanese title is 気化熱 ダイスケリチャード作品集. KIKANETSU is the English for 気化熱 which according to translation means heat of vapourisation.
If I'm not wrong, this seems to be the first artbook from Daisuke Richard (ダイスケリチャード), an artist based in Tokyo, Japan. SUISO (水槽) was published in 2019 and Ushimitsudoki (丑三ツ時) was published in 2021. All three artbooks feature schoolgirl illustrations.
The artworks are of the schoolgirls studying, eating, doing nothing, lazing around and posing. There's nothing erotic about the images, no sexual connotation and no sexual poses. The drawing style with the clean lines and flat colours is very typical of Japanese manga and animation. Some of the illustrations may look simple but you can tell there's thought given to the poses and composition. There are also very detailed illustrations such as the one you see on the cover.
The use of limited colour palette which consist of pastel colours and the heavy use of mid range values provides a consistent aesthetics and style throughout the book. These artworks are very popular, more popular than what the 200+ reviews on Amazon Japan would suggest. Whenever there's a new illustration posted on Daisuke Richard's Twitter page, there will be thousands or tens of thousands of likes.
It's a wonderful artbook. If you like this book, you'll like the other two books too.
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This book was borrowed from Basheer Graphic Books for review purposes. You can order the book from them. Check with Basheer on Facebook.
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