artbook

The Japanese have perfected the art of the artbook! All of these are preorder bonus goodies or otherwise limited edition items that could only be obtained through a special offer. As a result, many of these books and booklets are hard to find and tend to be pricey. Bummer.

symphony of the night artbook

This is the mini, CD booklet sized artbook that came with the special edition (or maybe the first printing) of the Japanese Playstation version of Symphony of the Night. Also came with a sexy sampler CD, but that's another story...

aria of sorrow artbook

Ah, the infamous Aria of Sorrow artbook. How does one obtain such a treasure? These days, buying it from a Japanese auction site is the only answer, but this book was originally given out to those people rabid enough to preorder the game.

This isn't all Aria artwork, but a collection of illustrations for games from Symphony through Aria, including a number of character design sketches that show costume development. Cool.

lament of innocence artbook

Here's scans of the slipcover and mini artbook (more like booklet, if you ask me) that came with the special edition of Lament of Innocence.

lament of innocence calendar

This is the CD case sized calendar that came with the limited edition of Lament of Innocence. Yes, the limited and special editions are different. Why? So you're forced to buy both, natually.

portrait of ruin preorder goods & artbook

The first four scans show the packaging and various items included with the Portrait of Ruin preorder bonus (CD, stylus, case, etc) and the rest are scans from the 48 page mini artbook.

dracula x chronicles konamistyle artbook

My book arrived with half the pages falling out thanks to a huge split in the middle of the spine. Thanks Konami! It did make some of the pages easier to scan, and I felt less guilty about bending the hell out of the artbook since it was already messed up.

I didn't scan the Symphony of the Night art because it's already up on this site. Note that scans 03 and 04 are at 600dpi instead of 300dpi (er, oops) and scan 09 isn't the best job of piecing scans together that I've ever done. It's only a bit of Annette's wing, though, so no biggie. By the way, vampire Annette is super hot. :9

Santa Lilio Sangre - Scarlet Lily - Castlevania illustrations

There are 54 Castlevania illustrations in Kojima Ayami's massive artbook, Santa Lilio Sangre. Some are familiar and have been used in multiple books before, like many of the Symphony of the Night illustrations, but there's a handful of "new" illustrations. Most of these "new" ones have been pictured elsewhere, but not in full, or with obstructions like text covering part of the image.

I generally do not watermark images, but since I literally destroyed an expensive book to get these scans, they are marked.