Customer Reviews

Okami Official Complete Works

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Length:: 0:18 Mins

Okami is an action-adventure video game released on Playstation 2 and Wii. And this is not a game guide; it doesn't show you how to take on enemies.

Okami features the most unique art direction I've seen for any computer game. It is heavily inspired by Japanese watercolour painting and wood carving art of the Ukiyo-e style. It's an amazing concept to combine watercolour in computer game art, moreover, use it in the actual game itself.

This thick 288-page art book is filled to the brim with content. There are official character art including the concept sketches, storyboards, paintings created by by Issun the Celestial Envoy while on journey with Okami Amaterasu and even some music sheets at the end. The application of watercolour to create cute character design is very refreshing.

Everything in the book is captioned. Characters have their introductions. The character designs are explained to the detail of why they wear what they wear. Concept sketches come with artists' reflection. And then there's the journal of Issun, which is a whole big section by itself. There's so much stuff to read, so much information and stories into background of the characters and places.

This book is highly recommended and worth taking a look even if you have no idea what the game Okami is about.

(More pictures are available on my blog. Just visit my Amazon profile for the link.)

This book is an astounding value, and one of the best art-related purchases I've ever made. I was a huge fan of Okami from the beginning, but this book is excellent enough that even people that have never played the game before can get enjoyment out of it.

The book includes a brilliant holographic cover, high-quality paper stock, and vibrant coloring. My single favorite feature, though, had to be the "Gossip" section that followed up on what happened to the characters after the game was over. The storyboards, sheet music, and production sketches were all absolutely brilliant as well.

This art is not only striking and memorable, but it also manages to evoke real emotion. Any person that places any value on good artistry should look past any biases against the videogame origins of this art book and pick it up.

Best book purchase I've made in the past three years, undoubtedly.

This massive collection of sketches, conceptual art, Japanese-print style illustrations, stage and character designs, and bestiary are a joy to behold and a great source of inspiration for budding artists, anime fans, and gamers. I am glad I waited for this English translation of this book, for it's certainly nice to be able to read the text of such a beautifully printed book at a fraction of the cost of the imported version. The bright color palette and the watercolor cartoon sketching style of these illustrations is not only strikingly bold but also deceptively simple to emulate which would make them an ideal non-threatening goal for beginning artists to strive for.

Okami is an artistically beautiful game on the PS2 and Wii. (If you have not played it, I recommend you do!)It is great to see such art compiled into a gorgeous art book. There plenty of sketches of many characters--from the townspeople to the monsters/demons to the various Brush Gods. Of course, Okami has several sketches, being the main character and all.

There are even rough sketches of the various characters in the back, showing the artist's brainstorming and their unused ideas for characters and backgrounds/environments. There are even some small manga pieces and other various art.

The only two complaints I have are: (1) Many of the background and the various misc. art are a little too small (which is a shame because they are beautiful!)and (2) The binding on this book is fragile. The book is very thick and the cover binding is very thin and fragile, so handle with LOTS of care.

Besides that, this is a game artbook I highly recommend to Okami fans, to people who like Japanese artwork, and even non-gaming artists. It is truly "a work of art"...

A truly stunning book. With 288 huge full-color pages and shiny gold FOIL on the cover, this book is most certainly worth $40, even $50.
I love reading all the artists' and game creators' notes. They're so fun... and funny. Big full-page spreads of the brush gods, characters, divine instruments, bosses, etc. Not only are they big, they're super high quality! I'm also very glad that Udon kept the original Japanese right-to-left alignment. There would be lots of flipped images and confusing things if they had flopped it.
There are actually quite a few disappointing things about the book, but they didn't dishearten me enough to drop a star in my rating. For one thing, there are a few poorly translated things, and I was a bit sad that some of the translations that are supposed to use in-game text are simply translated and not written in accordance to the English version of the game. Also, 'Takamagahara' appears in the book several times... and is spelled three different ways. These inconsistencies were a bit saddening, but not too sad... mistakes happen, I guess.
Also, the binding isn't terribly great... I don't mind at all that the spine creases. In fact, that adds to the book's old beat-up look. However, just a few flips through it caused a few segments of pages to come loose of the binding glue. Thankfully it's all kept together by tough string, and about half the pages are still attached. Not to mention there are thick pages glued together at the beginning and end of the book, so nothing will be falling out any time soon. Life is good. :)

I've bought a lot of anime and video game-related art books, and this is easily the best one I've ever bought. It's filled with beautiful art of everything in the game, designers' comments, alternate character designs, promotional materials, and more -- even sheet music for an arrangement of "The Sun Rises," the main theme of the game. At almost 300 pages, it's also among the largest art books I own. I highly recommend this for anybody who's a fan of the game, or even for anybody who just likes the art style.

Not much to say on this one, but it's really interesting to see what kind of decisions they had to make when they were designing characters. A few times, I actually liked what they made before they went with something else.

I only have two disappointments with this book. 1) If you've played the game and beaten it, a lot of the artwork in the book is actually in the game. So having the game & the book is kinda silly, and 2) the book is big! Normally this wouldn't be problem, but the glue holding the spine of the pages in got lose on one end, so you have to be careful with this.

After perpetual delays in the English translation, Udon did finally get around to releasing the (300-page, full color) "Okami" art book in June 2008. It was mostly worth the wait.

As with most art books, the "Okami: Official Complete Works" is a series of game and concept artwork with commentary from people involved - both in the creative process of the art and the game itself. There are, interestingly, musical cues to match parts of the art book, but as I don't have the soundtrack CD I can't check them. The (English) commentary is marked with what I presume to be kanji noting the author of the commentary; I can't read the language, but the English version of the names is given early on, so it still works as a marker.

Since Okami got a great deal of praise for it's art direction, you'd expect the concept art to be beautiful, and it is. A lot of this was already used in the game - particularly the large pieces - but not all of it, and it's nice to have it printed out. The biggest disappointment here is actually that more of the pieces didn't get full page treatment, particularly some of the "leftover" pieces in the back. They got a number of different people to do the commentary on the early art - generally, whoever worked on it - and it's often informative (and occasionally very odd, in a "Only in Japan ..." kind of way) on the development of some the material. Okami was a unique game; a browse through the art is well worth it.

****1/2

This book is well worth the buy, especially for people who like japanese traditional art, wolves, or just need something good to look into. All in all this book is very good, and better yet it only took a couple of days for it to get to my house came packaged nicely, not to hard to open, and when I got the book out it was in prime condition. Well worth the buy and the wait. Five stars easily.

I'm a huge Okami fan, so when I saw this was back in stock, I pounced on it.

It came in the mail yesterday, and--my word--it's beautiful. It's got great commentary from the dev team, wonderful production sketches (with all the handwritten notes translated!), and fantastic promotional pieces. It's also a hefty sucker, a good 1-1.5 in thick, with beautiful print quality. The cover literally took my breath away.

I cannot recommend it enough.