Artmic Encyclopedia Vol. 1

Type: Multiple Artist Collection

Author: Kenichi Sonoda and others

Publisher: Bandai

Format: Softback 171mm x 106mm

Cover Price ¥850

Publication Date: 1990

Page count: 194

This little softback book is a curious beast. It is a softback with a gloss dust jacket featuring mostly dark blue text and drawings on fairly cheap off-white paper. There are 16 full colour pages but given the small format it doesn't do justice to the pictures. Only really of interest to complete Artmic fanatics, this contains a lot of japanese text along with monochrome character and Mecha designs from the Artmic series Megazone 23, Bubblegum Crisis, Gall Force, Wannabes and Genesis Climber Mospeada.

The picture (of Rabby from Gall Force) is typical of the majority of the contents. If you are a big fan of their work, or just interested in how anime is created, then this "behind the scenes" book may be of some interest. For most people, it's probably just a bit too niche. There was meant to be a second volume containing later Artmic work but I haven't located a copy.