KNT Official Fan Book

[Violet]

Nifty sounding fan book!
The sketches from the planned sequel especially sound interesting.
Are the cast  & crew interviews recent?

Yeah, I'd like to have seen more of the Cat Police Beranmee art, but for all I know there might not have been much more done than what was on that one page.

The interviews are recent, probably done especially for this book.  Noticed one mistake there, they gave Omitsu's voice actress' name as Yamaguchi Kappei (Yattarou's voice) in romaji under her picture, it should be Mizutani Yuko.  They did have the kanji names right though.

[felineki]

My copy arrived today. Was glad to see some production drawings I hadn't seen before, such as facial expression sheets  for Usahime, Otama and Omitsu.

I noticed one other error aside from the one Violet mentioned: Ball (the NY equivalent of Otama) has her name written as "Boonomu" (ボーノム) rather than "Booru" (ボール) like it should be. Given that the characters look vaguely similar, this was probably a case of someone getting confused by sloppy handwriting, like many of the infamous Gamest errors.

[rcom88]

The book looks really neat. Unfortunately, I can't read Japanese.

[felineki]

The book's been restocked at Hobby Search.

[Fureon]

Got my copy today. Lots of art, but I wish I could read, too 

[cuchulain]

Hey everyone, thanks for the links.  I just ordered my copy, but is there a translation of it anywhere so that I can read it when it comes?  I wish I had taken more than two semesters of Japanese in college...

[felineki]

I don't think anyone has attempted to translate it yet, but I'll see about going through and at least translating some of the more interesting points sometime soon.

[sans soul]

i SO need a copy of this... 

[Tigriss]

Between the DVD releases, toys, and now this, it's like there's a conspiracy to keep my wallet empty going on here. Guess I'll just have to focus on one thing at a time.

[PizzaCatFan]

I decided I wasn't going to hold out any longer after not having found this at any of dealers that specialized in artbooks at Anime Central.  Had to put out the call to eBay for this one (it must have been a limited print run), but I'm looking forwards to receiving my copy....should be in a few weeks (Japan Post / customs / USPS transitions are slow).  I'm choosy when it comes to artbooks, being they're not a cheap thing to get....obviously they have to be series I enjoy, and not just filled with images of borderline ecchi / hentai, which those kind, along with anthology books, seem to get high print runs and are everywhere.  Series-specific books are ridiculously rare beasts to acquire or so it seems.

I'll pose my own thoughts once I have it.

[usbcheater]

I just got my copy off mandarake, it should be here in a week and a half, also the Speedy figure is already going for ¥16,000 on there. so now I am going to take extra, extra care of it lol   

[PizzaCatFan]

I now hold my copy in my hands....just came in this morning.  Very nice, despite my inability to read the character bios and interviews.  Sure I could scan the pages as editable text files, copy and paste them to an online translator, but those translators are highly inaccurate, and I wish not to wreck the binding.

Despite that, I always find these guidebooks interesting, giving one a look into the series' production...from concept sketches, storyboard and background art, to the finished product that we see on TV.  In short, this book's a keeper for that alone.

[sans soul]

PCF, What's your favorite thing from the book so far?

*

[PizzaCatFan]

The line art section.  Those at times (as I have in other artbooks I own) can be a treasure trove of unused outfits, body design (pre-production sketches and such), and facial expressions.  Kind of like what we see with Tenko's blog entries.  Those are more in the raw / manga style, whereas and like with most other anime, the final character design is often a cleaned up and stylized look, to give it a 'shiny and fluid' look when put to animation...more appealing to the eyes so to speak.

[felineki]

Yeah, the model sheet section is great, even though a lot of it is stuff we already had scans of. One interesting thing is that some of the model sheets in the book are pre-finalized versions that have some details that were omitted at the last second from the finalized model sheets (and thus the show's animation). For example, Polly has two hearts on each forearm, and Guido has two diamonds on each forearm, as opposed to one. And all 3 cats have distinct thruster nozzles on their backpacks. Francine has little antennae in her ears, and buttons on her apron.

It's nothing short of a miracle that we got a fan book at all 20 years after the show's airing, but if there's something more I would have liked to see it would have been for the model sheet section to be much more expansive. I would have liked to see enemy robots, architectural plans (would love to see the plans for the pizzeria), extras, stuff that didn't end up making it into the show (Princess Rabby, etc.), early pre-production design concepts and such.

[PizzaCatFan]

I hear you on that, Felineki.  Even so, I'm glad we even got anything after 20+ years.  While yes, most of the line art is out there in digital form, you pointed out some of the details that didn't make the final designs that we're familiar with, either in the anime or in digitized form.

[Tigriss]

I've been meaning to thank you, PizzaCatFan. I had been putting off buying the KNT artbook until after I got the SPC DVDs, but your post prompted me to hurry and order a copy right after I read it. I didn't want to be stuck without one, or have to resort to paying a much higher price later on. And, funny coincidence, both the artbook and the KNT replacement disc arrived on the same day, which was nice timing.

Not much else to say about it right now because I still haven't gone through the whole thing yet, but from what I've seen so far, I already love it.

[PizzaCatFan]

You're welcome, Tigriss.  Good to hear you also got your replacement KNT disc.  I just got my SPC set almost 2 weeks ago, but in the meanwhile (while waiting for it), I soaked up the entire KNT set like a sponge, especially after getting my replacement for the 2nd DVD.  The show, while still being funny and full of action, it does have a different vibe to it.  I can't put my finger on it....it may be due to its more easier pace and the fact that not all scenes have some BGM playing behind it (like in SPC), which gives it an entirely different mood.

I digress.  Enjoy that art/fan book.

[felineki]

A bit late in posting the news here, but Udon Entertainment will be releasing a translated version of this book.

[A-Log]

A bit late in posting the news here, but Udon Entertainment will be releasing a translated version of this book.

When will it come out? I've gotta have it!