If the words such as Tokimeki Memorial, dating sim or romance fantasy are whispered in the right ears you will see some guys eyes light up like lovestruck teenage girls. It's one of the dreaded signs of an affliction known as "heroine addiction". Once you have said the magic words, be prepared to listen to them go on about a girl that doesn't exist, but by the end you'll swear she does just on the volume of detail alone. To spare them the hit on the wallet, give them the blueprints to concoct their own vice with How to Draw Anime and Game Characters Vol 5: Bishoujo Game Characters.
This book is a massive treasure trove of information on how to create Bishoujo game characters. The beginning starts off with the main formulae of creating a good game; a girl game isn't just an excuse to draw cute girls (yes some games might be) but that they are designed to be an artistic work as a whole. If you parade a list of cute faces by a player with nothing else, they won't be interested for long. A fast few page crash course in plot is given along with relationship maps and other ways to keep characters straight.
From there, Bishoujo Game Characters goes into the standard archetypes found in girl games: the tomboy, the princess, the athletic girl, and plenty others. The archetypes are used as just that, giving basic frameworks to build something more complex. Great detail is given to interaction and making these girls lifelike; massive notes are given on how they dress, what their mannerisms are, and how each differs from the others.
Everything from combat to romance is covered in a way to deal with any common situation that occurs within a girl game story. Whereas most simple how to draw books carry the basics, this does one thing that the others do not: composition. Care is taken to not only show context of images, but how they fit into a coherent whole. For example the most common poster designs are broken down into triangular designs and patters to balance out a shot. Certain effects such as close-ups are covered in the case of each character. This is priceless in trying to figure out how to make shots more appealing. There are also some editing tips given with examples. Basic beginners of an extremely low level are given their shot and their art corrected with notes on what was changed and why. Sadly, only 3 examples are given when more would have been helpful.
Although highly detailed, Bishoujo Game Characters makes a few serious stumbles in the visual category itself. Although blessed with a plethora of information, the art style detracts and confuses. Tadashi Ozawa, an animation director for Studio Ghibli, has done his utmost to educate the audience and the points made in his visual examples are done well. However, the designs go from one extreme to the other, never hitting the middle in which most manga and game character designs lay. From thick, heavy, overworked lines with overly realistic shading, to flat two dimensional figures that have no depth to them at all, the illustrations come out unattractive and strange looking. The examples seem to leave out easily observable details from any game played or animation watched. Although this is a book for beginners, it would have been helpful to add in real lifeEcompleted work to compare finished product with instruction.
This book is a wonderful addition to any How to Draw Manga library, and with the amount of info involved quite worth the price. However, treat it like a cookbook where the pictures don't quite match the recipe; add in others of the How to Draw Manga series to spice up the visual instruction better. If you have the interest in animation or gaming, this is not a book to be left without, and even if not this is worth a serious read. With this book in combination with others, any "heroine addicted" guy can happily brew his own special game to satisfy his tastes, whatever they may be.
Want to read more?! Buy How to Draw Anime & Game Characters Vol. 5: Bishoujo Game Characters here from Akadot Retail.
