The Saga of Tanya The Evil: Complete Setting Material
Note: For Those That Want To Check Out The Art Book But Can't Afford It, Click Here For A Free Online Version
So this is a very cool art book, for a very cool series, from a very cool studio. I sorta wish there was a key animation or storyboard collection for the anime because it's so interesting and intense, but beggars can't really be choosers. Regardless, some initial history of the series might be cool for some, and provides even more reason to be impressed.
I think the most interesting thing is that the light novel for Tanya The Evil is completely different. It's not a super strong toddler out on the battlefield, but a child fighting for the ability to not have to put their life on the line every single day. It's far more tactical, far less showy, and incredible technical by comparison. Which is awesome. Two almost entirely different products, and both are amazing in their own right.
What's also amazing is the studio behind the anime, Nut (yes, that's their name). The Saga of Tanya The Evil was their first anime (not counting a FLCL movie they worked on with 2 other studios). It was the first series, all the way back in 2017 and they killed it. Not many studios can say that they nailed their first project as well as Nut did.
So at the end of the day, The Saga of Tanya The Evil is a crazy bold and brash anime adaptation that put Nut on the map, and gave us super cool art books like this Tanya The Evil setting material one, which has some really beautiful art underneath the dust jacket.
There's loads of extra details alongside the art in this book as well, just little extra pieces and drawings to help spice it up. Like this cover page for the character design section of the book, or the little Tanya illustration that acts as a cover page to the whole book.
Overall in the book, there's 6 "chapters", though effectively 4 or even 3. Character Design, Prop Design, Environment Line Art, Staff Interview, Environment Art, and Light Novel Illustrations. Other than the Staff Interview and LN Illustrations, the chapters of the book are pretty beefy and cover a really solid amount of information and insight. I mean, just look at the character design stuff for Tanya.
Tanya alone has 8 pages dedicated to her in the Character Design chapter, eight. Most will only have 2 or maybe 3, but because of that it covers a really nice breadth of characters that take you all over the place. It's really interesting to see just how much detail and effort is placed into how so many of these characters look, as they end up feeling somewhat simplified when in color and in motion.
Next up is the Prop Design chapter, and I found this section to be the most interesting of the batch. The detail and research put into a lot of the historical weapons and utilities of the era was really impressive, and the detail and thought process for some of the fictional pieces of equipment was super interesting to follow. In contrast to the Character Design chapter though, this one features a lot more full color and even CG work.
Following Prop Design is the Environment Line Art chapter, and man, line art just really gets me. It's something you really take for granted in a lot of shows and you don't really realize how much detail and design work is placed into stuff. Just page upon page upon page of sprawling environments, massive castles or buildings, and all manner of other thing.
Skipping over the Staff Interview (because it's in Japanese) we come to the fully completed environment work. Devoid of characters, motion, and misdirection, the scenery and detail absolutely sucks you in. It's crazy how detailed some of the art ends up.
And last but not least is the Light Novel Cover Illustrations. It's rather small detail overall, but I really appreciate that they went through the trouble of including them because they're so good, and basically the only way outside of the LNs to have Shinobu Shinotsuki's illustrations. Of course, I had to go with my favorite cover illustration, Volume 7, though 6 is a close second.
At the end of the day, for any Tanya The Evil fans, I'd say this art book is highly, highly recommended. I know there's a bit of an impediment due to the price of it, but overall you can grab it for a somewhat reasonable price. eBay has listings that are pretty pricy, but buying in Japan through a proxy service you can get much more reasonable prices and even deals on shipping.
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is youjo senki considered like.. underground or something?? i just went manga hunting and found no youjo senki manga OR LN (ln are always hard to find anyway lmfaooo) i went to multiple stores and it just. Doesnt exist.
i actually have the saga of tanya the evil 2nd manga, which i bought in a mainstream book store, which also proves that i could find it somewhere but its been fruitless 💔in another month or two ill go looking for some again but today has been very sad 😢
and expect erich body pillow in 1 work week or less.
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