Regardless of what you think of Tony Takas art since taking over the Shining franchise’s art duties all the way back in 2004, he seems to have acquired a massive following in Japan. While the Shining series has had trouble selling copies of their games, it seems that Japan responded positively to Tony Taka’s character designs. So much so that there is a ton of Shining series merch being sold, more so than the actual games. Tony Taka has even released a couple of Shining related art books as well, this will be more broad artwork he has done in the past.
AmiAmi will be selling the “Tony’s ART works from Origin” book which is set to feature various character designs from his career including magazine covers and vocaloids he has designed, including a long form interview looking at his history these past 20 years. The book will come in A4 page format, will have a hardcover backing and clear slip on box. The book will set you back 5,000 yen ($46), will have 100 pages and feature 80 illustrations. The details of the book also brag that about 30 of the character designs in the book got made into figurines. Good for you Tony Taka, I guess.
Hit the jump to check out preview pages of some of the artwork that will be in the book:
[Via AmiAmi]
Here is the book and the slip on cover:
Why on Earth would anyone bitch about Taka’s art? His character designs are the only good thing to come out of modern Shining games.
Well, that’s sort of the problem. The criticism isn’t so much geared towards Tony Taka’s artwork (aside from how similar the characters from different franchises tend to look), rather it’s the approach SEGA took with the franchise. Ever since Tony Taka became involved, the series has started to focus more and more on the otaku market, using fanservice to drive sales of DLC, figures, artbooks and a ton of other content. You can’t blame Tony Taka for doing what he does best, but in capitalizing on that SEGA pushed the series in an increasingly niche corner. More so than other JRPG franchises, which as a result still have a (growing) presence in the West (the Tales series is a good example). For example, Shining Resonance had 16 DLC packs, ticking all the otaku boxes: school setting DLC, hot spring DLC, swimsuit DLC… By the end, they were just selling recolored version of previous swimsuits. These low-effort attempts at draining just a bit more money from fans in Japan seem rather cynical, and it speaks volumes about SEGA’s (lack of) ambition with the series.
So what it comes down to is that Tony Taka’s artwork has simply become symbolic for SEGA’s strategy with the recent Shining games. That’s not his fault, of course, but at the same time those who played the old Shining Force games would like to see the franchise returns to its roots.
Honestly, Tony Taka’s anime art girl illustrations are beyond better than any other artist ive ever spent my time researching. His perspective on a tall , long hair, large breast, small shoulders, wide hips and big thighed female is perfect, infact, flawless (google tony magazine 1, look for the blonde elf with her legs spread open to understand what i’m talking about). And yes, Sega is very shady, they don’t even share their motion speed for their MMD videos plus other bad things i’ve heard about them. Though until just now I didn’t know they were using Tony’s work. And I disagree with the individual who degraded and shamed Tony’s work, if that guy can find a better artist, he can reply to this comment, Tony’s work is atleast relatively realistic, the girls are very exquisite, some may think otherwise, but that may be because they set their expectations through the roof.
Tony’s art is really f-ing boring. Find some of his art from 15 (!!!) years ago and compare it to current. Nothing’s changed. Still the same pastel colors and boring, static poses with the same set of 3 facial expressions. I’m fairly sure that if it wasn’t for his porn drawings and the inclusion of subtle vagina and nipple outlines in artbooks etc. he wouldn’t even be 1/4 as well known as he is now.