This is a static copy of In the Rose Garden, which existed as the center of the western Utena fandom for years. Enjoy. :)
#1 | Back to Top07-11-2015 11:41:18 AM
- lectic
- Wakaba Wrangler
- From: UK
- Registered: 06-16-2015
- Posts: 17
A couple of questions on buying artbooks…
I’m trying to amass a bunch of Utena artbooks (and the CD collection) for my birthday this year but I don’t want to get ones that are essentially identical or share a lot of content. I’ve already decided to go for the Hard core of Utena collection, the Chihou Saito manga artbook, and the pixiv art collection (goodbye savings, it was nice knowing you…) but I want some advice to those who know better than me. Since I'm assuming people here own utena artbooks and other merch.
Since I want to get hard core, would it be at all worth getting the Whole Rose Art Collection “Bara no Zenbo” (薔薇の全貌 少女革命ウテナ ART COLLECTION) and/or the Visual Making of Utena “Art of Utena” (少女革命ウテナ ヴィジュアルメイキングブック―アート・オブ・ウテナ) artbook?
It seems like they share a lot of stuff with hard core and the latter two seem more expensive in some instances so I’m not sure there’s any point. If it's like half/half then I may consider getting them at a later date...
Also concerning the movic character design/settings/settei/whatever it’s called book (少女革命ウテナ 設定資料集) is there any difference between the 1997 version and 2013 release version? It’s the one featuring BW line art of the characters.
I also want to get some movie artbooks, but again I know there’s movie art in hardcore (though I don't know whether it's just screenshots, character art or promotional material) so I want to know if it’s worth getting either the Newtype Illustrated collection (劇場版 少女革命ウテナアドゥレセンス黙示録 (Newtype illustrated collection), and/or the 1999 program art book which has an all-pink cover for movie art. The latter appears to be a collection of screenshots etc?
There also appears to be a movie artbook floating around in ebay written in English… anyone have an idea what that is?
Sorry for the long post.. And thanks very much in advance!!
Images will be posted under here just so it's not difficult to read the text. I also tried to make them small so as not to take up room ;;
Whole Rose: 
Art of Utena/Visual Making: 
1997 movic settings: 
2013 movic settings: 
Newtype illustrated collection: 
The pink book: 
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#2 | Back to Top07-15-2015 01:15:14 AM
Re: A couple of questions on buying artbooks…
Let's see....
Hardcore effectively makes most of the artbooks obsolete. Originally the one thing you really wanted was the stupidass CD-ROM. 
The gallery had a lot of stuff rare for its time because I had that disc. If you get Hardcore, the Whole Rose one is pretty much pointless.
Art of Utena focused more on the art direction and production aspect, with a lot of line art and sketches. If that's important to you there's stuff in it I don't think I saw flipping through Hardcore.
I haven't seen the 2013 MOVIC settings, so I can't compare them. But either is a solid get, you won't find that stuff elsewhere.
Newtype is also mostly covered in Hardcore, although like Art of Utena there's more production content in it than Hardcore has. The pink book I remember having very little uncharted territory. It's mostly tiny pics from the movie, artfully arranged.
The Chiho Saito book is a definite grab, the print quality and content is top notch. Pixiv is great too, but remember it's fanart so it's only sort of canonish.
Hardcore and the Saito book would be my top buys. Of course, Hardcore isn't technically 'licensed' I think, and there's the collectible quality of the older ones. It does, however, have pretty much every single god damn full color artwork and many many high resolution shots from the show. (Taken from cells, not screenshots.) Lots of sketch stuff as well. My advice, focus on Hardcore, but make sure it's a complete one, two volumes plus the supplemental magazine thingie. Also there was a bag mine came in. A really gorgeous package. I hate working on it because I'm butchering such a beautiful thing. 
The Whole Rose one was the best artbook previous to Hardcore, and I'd say it's the one with the most collectible/historical merit, so to speak. Art of Utena was more stylized though, and had a lot of non art, still art content, like the rose patterns and such that appear in the Misc section of the gallery. If you're super bent on a movie one, the Newtype is much better than the pink one.
Akio, you have nice turns of phrase, but your points aren't clear and you have no textual support. I can't give this a passing grade.
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#3 | Back to Top07-27-2015 05:36:26 PM
- lectic
- Wakaba Wrangler
- From: UK
- Registered: 06-16-2015
- Posts: 17
Re: A couple of questions on buying artbooks…
Sorry for the late reply life is slow and hectic sometimes.
Thank you sooooo much for getting back to me about this!! I really wasn't sure about the crossover content between the books so I just wanted to check what would be included. Though I would like to see some production notes I'm not too bothered about it, so I'll probably hold off of that until I have more money or a bigger want for it. It's really difficult to get a version of hard core with the small additional magazine without going through yahoo! auction or some other site, so I may just settle with the two books... As far as I can tell it contains the sketches and things which can be see in the booklets of the remastered DVD boxsets and some other stuff... while I'd love to have it I'm not sure if I want to try and fork out extra for buying it via celga or anything.
Giovanna wrote:
I hate working on it because I'm butchering such a beautiful thing.
It's really awesome that you're willing to sacrifice your gorgeous artbooks for the sake of the gallery (though if only there were another way). I think it's really amazing the amount of effort and time you put into this. And again thank you so much for helping me here! I was getting wildly lost trying to figure out what would be the most sensible combo to buy but this has really cleared it up! 
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#5 | Back to Top11-09-2015 02:52:44 PM
- BunB
- Ohtori Paramouri
- Registered: 11-03-2015
- Posts: 91
Re: A couple of questions on buying artbooks…
Wow just found out about the Hard Core of Utena. Where can I buy the complete set?
Must the sign of the negative proposition be constructed by means of the sign of the positive? Why should one not be able to express the negative proposition by means of a negative fact?
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