『The Boy and The Beast』Artbook

『バケモノの子』Artbook

The making of Mamoru Hosoda’s 2015 animated film『The Boy and The Beast』is thoroughly documented in this artbook. The book format follows very closely that of『Wolf Children』and is divided, less confusingly, into colour section that is filled with primarily images and monochrome section in which texts abound. 

The first 77 pages of the book are entirely devoted to the environment, showcasing finished background arts with commentaries from such notable staff as Kazuo Oga and the likes. There is no environment line art but the book includes some 3D deconstruction of a location and some scenes are shown under different lighting conditions. The background art seems to be a mix of 2D and 3D.

In the next monochrome section are character design and various interviews with animators and animation supervisors. Some keyframe animations and layouts are included.
Then in the last colour section, focus shifts to analysing 3D / CG techniques used in the film. This section is complemented by a number of interviews with other production staff.

The downside — if there is any — of this beautiful artbook is that there is no interview with the director Hosoda, and that I personally wish some of the environment line arts can be shown.

Click here to see more images of this book.

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First published on 7 August 2015.
A4; 208 pages; colour and black / white; paperback with dust jacket.
IBSN: 9784041033920.
You may order your copy at Amazon.co.jp.