The 6th art book release from publisher Iwanami Shoten’s most excellent ‘Hayao Miyazaki Imageboard Series’ is a double feature showcasing concept art from the animated film Whisper Of The Heart as well as the animated MTV ‘On Your Mark’ by the Japanese pop duo Chage & Aska. Both were released in 1995 theatrically, with ‘On Your Mark’ screened before the start of Whisper of The Heart.

The bulk of the art work showcased in this book is from ‘On Your Mark’, with concept art from Whisper Of The Heart covering only about 15-20% of the book. My guess is that Hayao Miyazaki drew much fewer pieces of art because he served as the writer and not the director for Whisper Of The Heart ( that was the late Yoshifumi Kondō ). For ‘On Your Mark’, there are also a handful of storyboard pages included on top of the imageboards.

Publisher book synopsis – Hayao Miyazaki creates hand-drawn illustrations to conceive his ideas for his films and to communicate the concepts to his staff. These are called “image boards”. Hayao Miyazaki Image Board Series is a complete collection of Miyazaki’s “image board” artwork held at Studio Ghibli including unpublished works. In this large book with a trim size of 35.0 x 27.7 cm (12.8 x 10.1 in), portrait, the illustrations are reproduced at or close to their original size, in its true colors and texture of the original drawings realized by high-quality printing. Discover how the fascinating world of Miyazaki’s creation begins.

(above & below) There’s also a few rare pieces of background art for the futuristic city included in the giant art book Painting The Worlds Of Studio Ghibli.

The songs and music of Chage & Aska were immensely popular during the 80s and 90s, and ‘On Your Mark’ is particularly endearing because of the animated MTV by Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki. To the best of my knowledge, most, if not all of the concept art included in this book have never been released in book form before ( certainly not in such an extensive collection ), so to be able to appreciate them all in one book is just fantastic. Just like all the other five titles from the ‘Hayao Miiyazaki Imageboard Series’ that I had previously reviewed, I wholeheartedly recommend this one as well.

P.S. – If you’re looking to collect the ‘On Your Mark’ animated MTV on physical media, it is included in this Ghibli ‘Short Short’ DVD.

“Whisper Of The Heart / On Your Mark Imageboards Art Book” details :

Dimensions – ‎0.76 x 10.12 x 14.33 inches
Softcover, 138 pages
Full color, In Japanese language

  
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