Perfect Blue Storyboard Collection Art Book Review

Warning : The following post contains nudity/adult content.

The debut work of late anime director Kon Satoshi, Perfect Blue is a tight suspense thriller capped with a shocking ending that secured Kon’s place in the anime industry as a rising director of superb talent. Perfect Blue marked the start Kon Satoshi’s relatively short but brilliant career that saw him create such great pieces of animated cinema, namely Tokyo Godfathers, Millenium Actress and Paprika.

This 3 volume ( plus an additional supplementary booklet ) set collects the full storyboards used during the production of Perfect Blue, beautifully reproduced in A4 sized format . ( A smaller print sized version came bundled with the Japanese special edition blu-ray released back in 2008. )

Just like the storyboards by his mentor Otomo Katsuhiro and Ghibli director Miyazaki Hayao, Kon Satoshi’s storyboards are incredibly detailed and can be appreciated as beautiful pieces of illustrations on their own, although strictly speaking these storyboards were meant to serve only as production tools.

(above left) Anime storyboards are a good place to learn Japanese Onomatopoeia, because the empty box to the right of the image panel is used for writing down short explanatory notes as well as list sound effects used/required in the shot (Afureko). Here the sound of a character typing furiously away on his computer is expressed as “kata kata kata kata kata kata…”.

(above right) Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky paid homage to the work of Kon Satoshi by re-creating the bathtub scene in Requiem For A Dream, shot by shot ( see this older post ).

(below) Often when drawing wide panning shots anime directors break free from the constraints of the storyboard panel.

(above & below) The supplementary booklet contains posters and illustrations by Kon Satoshi, as well as some character sheets, background art plates and layout boards.

(above) Various background art plates used in the film. I only wish they’ve been given the full page spread treatment.

The 3 volumes come housed in a thin cardboard case ( image below ).

At 5940 yen the storyboard collection isn’t cheap, but Kon Satoshi’s masterful art work is worth every last yen of it. My highest recommedations.

“Perfect Blue Storyboard Collection Art Book″ Art book details :

– Dimensions – 11.9 x 8.4 x 1.1 inches
– Softcover, appr. 430 pages
– Full color /B&W, Japanese language

Buy From Amazon.com | Buy From Amazon Japan

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