Yoshitaka Amano has played an active part in Japanese illustration from 60's to present times. He has lived through Anime, game design, illustration, and now printmaking - demonstrating at each stopping point a variety of imagination that has had an impact far beyond his own successes in Japanese visual art..
In the U.S. he is best known for Vampire Hunter D, the conceptual design behind the Final Fantasy series, and several recent collaborations with Neil Gaiman. But as this book quickly reveals, Yoshitaka has great power as a pure illustrator and artist. His roots are in Art Nouveau and the psychedelic styling of the 1960's, but he combines this with a mastery of Japanese traditional styles to produce a variety of effects and images.
This is a focused collection of just his prints, both those done for graphic novels and anime, as well as completely independent work. There are 192 pages page sized illustration followed by a large illustrated catalog of the rest of his print output. A final commentary by Hiroshi Unno completes the work. The most notable missing work is from the Final Fantasy series, none of which ever appeared as prints. However, the originality of what is included far outweighs any regrets about any unfortunate gaps.
A word of warning. Collections of Yoshitaka's work have a tendency to go out of print and disappear irretrievably. I have lived to rue not making several purchases when I had the opportunity. If you would like a representative collection of what made Yoshitaka Amano one of Japan's most formidable illustrators, this is a good selection at a very digestible price, with no sacrifice of quality. To have more at present, means searching out work that is out of print. Seize the opportunity.