Japanese manga/illustrator/concept artist Kimiya Masago’s impactful rendering breath life into the numerous titular characters in the Romance Of The Three Kingdoms saga, a part historical, part fictional tale of three warring states set during the Han Dynasty. The stories and characters were probably made more familiar to western audiences after John Woo’s Red Cliff film and games like Dynasty Warriors.

(above right) The character Zhao Yun, known for his immense skills with the spear, and a big favourite among fans of the story. He and four other generals ( Zhang Fei, Guan Yu, Ma Chao and Huang Zhong form are often known as the Five Tiger Generals.

Each illustration comes with a short English and Japanese caption with some background information regarding the character.

Besides full page spreads featuring individual characters, the last section of the book also covers some of the more iconic battles and events that took place throughout the Romance saga, including Battle Of The Red Cliff (image above), made famous by John Woo’s sweeping film adaptation.

If you like Kimiya Masago’s style of art, I also recommend his series of graphic novels Suikoden ( The Water Margin ), based on yet another classical Chinese tale where a bunch of highly skilled outlaws band together to fight the corrupt Imperial government.

“Kimiya Masago – Romance Of The Three Kingdoms” art book details :

– Dimensions – 26.2 x 21.8 x 1.8 cm
– Hardcover, 117 pages
– Full color, in Japanese language with English captions

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