TOKYO BABYLON PHOTOGRAPHS

by Clamp

衝撃的な最終回を迎え、コミック界にセンセーショナルを巻き起こした大人気作を彩った数々のイラストを一挙収録。
華麗にして緻密、センスあふれるイラスト……。オールカラー、超ボリューム、いまだかつてないイラスト集。

Genres: Manga, Art

158 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 1996

About the author

Ōkawa Nanase 大川七瀬
[born: 2 May 1967; Ōsaka, bloodtype: A]

Mokona Apapa もこなあぱぱ
[born: 16 Jun 1968, Kyōto; bloodtype: A]

Nekoi Mick 猫井みっく
[born: 21 Jan 1969, Kyōto; bloodtype: O]

Igarashi Satsuki 五十嵐さつき
[born: 8 Feb 1969, Kyōto; bloodtype: A]


CLAMP originally began in 1989 as a twelve-member dōjinshi circle, but by 1990, the circle had diminished from twelve to seven. Of the remaining seven, Tamayo Akiyama, Sei Nanao, and Leeza Sei left the group during the production of the RG Veda manga. Other former members of CLAMP also included Soushi Hishika, O-Kyon, Kazue Nakamori, Yuzuru Inoue and Shinya Ōmi. Currently, there are four members in the group.

In 2004, CLAMP's 15th anniversary as a mangaka group, the members changed their names from Nanase Ohkawa, Mokona Apapa, Mick Nekoi, and Satsuki Igarashi to Ageha Ohkawa, Mokona, Tsubaki Nekoi and Satsuki Igarashi (her name is pronounced the same, but written with different characters) respectively. The August 2004 issue of Newtype USA, a magazine specializing in events of the anime and manga subcultures, reported that the members of CLAMP simply wanted to try out new names. In a later interview with Ohkawa, it was revealed that initially Mokona wanted to drop her surname because it sounded too immature for her liking, while Nekoi disliked people commenting that her name was the same as Mick Jagger's. Ohkawa and Igarashi, wanting to go with the flow of Nekoi's and Mokona's name changes, changed their names as well.

In 2006, they made their first USA public debut at Anime Expo in Anaheim, California. They were well received at the convention, with 6,000 fans in attendance at their panel.

Reviews

[Bibliothecat · Rating 3 out of 5]

For better or for worse, CLAMP always seems to stick to the same style within a series. Tokyo Babylon falls on the worse side of things. Almost all illustrations are done with cell shading of the most basic kind - there's close to no variation between the basic colour and the shades, many spaces only using two tones. Although it creates a neat effect for some of the illustrations, it also leaves many looking very flat.

I do believe that this style was intentional and that this purely comes down to personal preferences, but it's definitely my least liked style from CLAMP, of whom I generally adore the art. It is nonetheless a worthwhile book for CLAMP fans or people who enjoy the Tokyo Babylon manga. Although it is one of CLAMP's earliest works, you can already see they enjoy designing costumes - I won't lie, some of the outfits are very unappealing to me, but it still makes for a fun collection and gives an interesting glimpse into the development of their art style.

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful art book full of amazing illustrations, worth having for the fashion alone

[Jera Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent art book encapsulating early CLAMP. I really like how all the pictures are framed, as the title says, to look like they were photographed. There are a lot of bold colors and props. Quite a few of the pictures I hadn't seen online already, so that was an awesome surprise as well!