Monthly Anime Style is the reincarnation of “Anime Style” magazine. One of the things that makes the new “Monthly Anime Style” so exciting is the fact that each issue will come with a Petit Nendoroid of a character from the anime featured in that issue. I’ll admit the #1 reason I picked up this magazine was because I recently viewed and fell madly in love with Toradora and I had to have the Taiga Nendoroid. As it turns out, Monthly Anime Style is a pretty awesome magazine if you are curious about the inner-workings of the animation industry.
Cover featuring Toradora!
This particular issue’s main feature is “Toradora!”. Also included are articles on Heart Catch Pretty Cure, Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt and 放浪息子 (Hourou Musuko).
Taiga's Box
The box that the Nendoroid comes in is the same dimensions as the magazine. It seems unnecessarily large, but it keeps the magazine from getting bent when stacked. Anything that keeps the book in top condition is a good thing, if you ask me!
Taiga Puchi Nendoroid
While the lighting in my photo brings out some paint imperfections, the Nendoroid is just as lovely and high quality as I’ve come to expect from Good Smile Company. This is, of course, Taiga in her outfit from the final episode epilogue of Toradora. It is most certainly one of the most memorable scenes in anime! I’m beyond delighted to have such a cute and affordable little version of her.
Toradora!
The introduction to the extensive Toradora article features one of my personal favorite pieces of official Toradora artwork. There’s a fantastic cleaned-up, high-res version of this artwork available here on imouto.org, which I offer because my photograph didn’t turn out as well as I’d hoped.
Screenshots Galore!
There’s a few pages of text and screenshots to start out with, the first one featuring the many moods of Taiga. (Tsun tsun and dere dere!)
Colorful Production Artwork
I really love the pages of genga (original production drawings) in particular. Some people might not find these too interesting, but I think they’re fascinating. I am a big fan of animation and in the past I collected animation cels before they were phased out. One of the few types of production art not done on the computer nowadays are these beautiful hand-drawn genga.
The Famous Kiss Scene!
Here we have pencil drawings of Toradora’s precious kiss scene. Seeing production art like this makes you realize the effort and delicacy with which these extremely important scenes are constructed. These scenes are normally drawn by what’s known as the “key” animator, who sets the standard of how each character should be drawn and animated.
Makoto Shinkai!
I was pretty excited that this magazine also included a section on the animation of Makoto Shinkai.
Shinkai's Settings
Shinkai manages to bring out the magic hidden in normal everyday settings. He is a master in his usage of color and light. In addition to this 2-page spread of settings, there’s quite a few gorgeous screenshots from his newest work 星を追う子ども (Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo). Unfortunately, my photos couldn’t do them justice, so they are not included here.
Hourou Musuko
Hourou Musuko has a truly unique animation style that mimics the art of the manga. Presented in its relating article are examples of the animation before and after applying this watercolor-like effect.
Panty & Stocking Manga
The end of the magazine includes a section on the Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt animation. Screenshots are accompanied by character model sheets as well a handful of pages of manga. This manga has the heavily stylized drawing of the animation as well as its trademark usage of foul English interjections. The artist has introduction of the color pink along with black and white to pack extra punch and make the comic feel that much more zany.
Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo
I took a picture of the back of the magazine because it has a big advertisement for Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo and that’s awesome. You can also consider it my apology for not taking any good photographs of the Hoshi wo Ou Kodomo screenshots in the Makoto Shinkai article. If anything, consider that another incentive to pick this magazine up! (As if you needed one in addition to the Taiga Nendoroid.)
I found this magazine’s content to be a pleasant surprise. I’m pretty used to animation magazines such as Newtype covering all of the good artwork with words and generally being too text-heavy. While there’s a lot going on in the articles, you can still enjoy this magazine quite a bit while only looking at the images. And with every single issue planning to include a puchi Nendoroid, “Monthly Anime Style” is a potential must-get for animation fans and figure collectors.
You can still get this issue at J-List for a limited time!
(As a heads up, issue #2 will be coming with a positively adorable Nadia!)
Plastic Pleasures 