Renowned animation director/concept artist/illustrator Mahiro Maeda (前田真宏) has been a tremendous creative force in the anime/film industry since the 1960s, but no proper showcase of his extensive and impressive portfolio has ever been published…until now.

Simply titled ‘Zatsu’ (雑), which translates as ‘messy’, a possible allusion to the wide gamut and diverse variety of art work collected, this book showcases more than half a century of creative work, both commercial and personal, from Ghibli genga/layouts to imageboards/storyboards, illustrations and character designs for anime and live-action films.

One of the bigger highlights include the character designs and imageboard/storyboards for ‘Furiosa’, a planned animated film spin-off of Gorge Miller’s 2015 Mad Max : Fury Road that never came to fruition, but nonetheless served as great reference and concept art work for the 2024 live-action film.

There is also a good collection of work that Mahiro Maeda took on for the Hideaki Anno cinematic universe, which includes films like Shin-Godzilla, Shin-Ultraman and Shin Kamenrider as well as Evangelion.

I’ve been a fan of Mahiro Maeda ever since I was introduced to his directorial work on the anime series Blue Submarine (1998), and this sumptuous art book is everything I could have hoped for, a splendid showcase of the artist’s most impressive portfolio. Highly recommended.

There are 2 editions of this art book available; the regular edition which I have reviewed, and also the deluxe edition, which comes at a bigger print size and also price point.

I would also recommend checking out all the excellent creature/character designs that Mahiro Maeda did for films like Shin-Godzilla, Shin-Ultraman and Shin Kamenrider.

“Mahiro Maeda Zatsu ( Thats ) 雑 前田真宏 雑画集” art book details :

Dimensions – 25 x 21 x 1.5 cm
Soft cover, 240 pages
Full color, in Japanese

  
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