Faeries Vol. #01

By Sakura Eries     June 30, 2006
Release Date: June 21, 2006



Creative Talent
Writer/Artist:Yoshitaka Amano
Translated by:Camellia Nieh
Adapted by:

What They Say
Yoshitaka Amano's lush ethereal paintings of magical creatures, spirits, goblins, and apparitions have been praised and admired all over the world. In Fairies he turns his considerable talent to capturing in breathtaking images characters from such beloved stories as Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, the wizard Merlin and his muse the intoxicating Nimue, mermaids of the deep as well as his interpretation of fairies from Celtic and Japanese mythology.

The Review
Packaging:
DH Press has done a wonderful job of producing this hardcover book. Printed on glossy pages, the colors are vibrant, and the illustrations include a four-page foldout spread of a scene that I am guessing is Queen Titania's retinue from A Midsummer Night's Dream. The front of the glossy dust cover features Amano's gorgeous rendition of the Celtic Swan maiden, bright with golden tones. The background pattern on the front cover also decorates the back (though it is magnified a few times larger) with a white vertical bar to the right containing a whimsical yellow and plum gnome, publisher's information, and a quote from Amano.

The actual cover of the book is done in a lightly speckled brown and off-white with a dull finish. Line sketches of a tiny pixie and a more sensual-looking larger fairy adorn the off-white portions of the front and back cover respectively.

Content:
According to the author's biography located at the back of the book and also printed on the inside flap of the dust cover, Yoshitaka Amano was involved in the character designs for the anime Gachaman/Battle of the Planets (I'm actually old enough to remember when this show aired in the United States) among other projects. If you are in the market for an anime art book featuring Amano's work, including black and white conceptual designs, promotional design material, and color anime screenshots, look elsewhere. Amano may be an artist with anime in his repertoire, but Fairies has nothing to do with anime. If, however, you are in the market for a beautifully illustrated gift or coffee table book for a British literature, folktale, or fairy tale enthusiast, this book is for you.

The contents of the book can be divided into three sections. The first section is a series of drawings inspired by Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream interspersed with verses from the play. However, there's only one of illustration (of Queen Titania with a donkey's head) where the connection between the play and the drawings is obvious. Had this section not been entitled "Midsummer Night's Dream," I would have taken these illustrations to be depictions of random fairies.

The second section reads like a compendium of fairies and goblins of the United Kingdom. Two-page features describe each creature using either a poem (rhyming or non-rhyming) or folktale accompanied by at least one color illustration.

The final section is an essay, "The Celtic Fairies, Changes of Figures in Japan," by Kimie Imura. While the poems and stories of the first two sections can be enjoyed by children, this final section reads more like a college treatise. Imura describes the origins of the fairies featured in Amano's illustrations, the role these mythological creatures played in the culture and history of the United Kingdom Islands, how these European fairies compare to Japanese mythical beings, and how fairies have been absorbed into Japanese artistic culture.

I should stress that these are not your Disney-type Tinkerbell or matronly godmother type of fairies. They're more like the original Grimm type of fairies -- some alluring, some earthy, and some mean-spirited enough to break the spine of a nosy human. While many do have the ethereal beauty that popular culture associates with fairies, others look like dwarves or gnomes.

Amano uses an assortment of mediums, including water-based acrylics, ink, and oil paints, and a variety of styles for his drawings. Some are extremely detailed while others look little more than rough sketches with some paint splashed on. Interspersed among his paintings are rough sketches, mostly head shots. As such, it is difficult to lump all the art featured in this volume under one category as they are so very different. I found some of the paintings extremely appealing while others had me asking, "Someone commissioned this?!" However, I will say this: I would not have guessed this to be the work of a Japanese manga artist. There are hints of Eastern influence here and there. For example, the fairy (Queen Titania?) with the long red train featured on the four-page spread strikes me as having Japanese elements, and the fairy featured on page 79 appears to be in some sort of Zen position. But for the most part, the illustrations look more like the work of some nouveau European artist. Not necessarily bad, but not exactly standard anime artwork.

Given that the text of the first section are quotes from an English play and the text of the second section are derived from British /Celtic folklore and literature, I am assuming that the only text that required translation is the essay by Imura. Stylistically, the translation is extremely solid. I would not have guessed that it was not originally written in English were it not for the translator credits at the front of the book. As I mentioned earlier in the review, it reads like a college-level academic essay. It probably would bore younger readers, but those interested in world mythology and the interplay between Western and Eastern cultures might find it interesting. However, the translation does have a tendency towards run-on sentences with a couple of punctuation errors on pages 76 and 78.

Speaking of text, I would like to add that, while juxtaposing Shakespeare's verses with Amano's illustrations makes sense artistically, whoever selected and arranged the placement of the quotes could have done a better job. Those unfamiliar with the play might not realize that the selected lines come from different characters and different sections. The text on page 6 especially irks me as it jumps without preamble from Puck's lines to Oberon's speech from a later section of the play.

Comments
I found the content of this book intriguing as it is a collection of British/Celtic fairy themed art and stories as interpreted from a Japanese viewpoint. However, it is, I repeat, not an anime art book, and I am a little surprised that Dark Horse picked it up. It's not otaku fare, but poetry or Ren-faire fans would probably enjoy it.