The Art Of Fullmetal Alchemist

Book Description

Translated faithfully from the Japanese edition, this coffee table book contains all the FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST color artwork by manga artist Hiromu Arakawa from 2001 to 2003. The Art of Fullmetal Alchemist contains over 90 pages of gorgeous painted illustrations, including all the title pages as printed in color in the Japanese magazine Shonen Gangan; Japanese tankobon (graphic novel) and promotional artwork, with source listings; portraits of the main characters; and character designs from the PS2 game Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel. Includes a special two-page message from Hiromu Arakawa.

Customer Reviews:

Arakawa rocks.......2006-10-10

If you're looking for the anime art, this isn't for you. But if you're smart, buy this book.

The anime not only TOTALLY screws up the plot, but even the characters' faces look different, especially the eyes. Arakawa, the original creator, draws beautifully and her characters all have a distinctive and different face (unlike a lot of manga and anime characters) and she portrays their emotion perfectly.

If you want to know why the anime plotline diverges from the manga's, Arakawa explains in one of her omakes. The storywriters just started plotting and decided that Arakawa's work wasn't good enough for them, although they wanted to take the base plot and characters.

You can only call yourself a true Fullmetal Alchemist fan if you read the manga.

Ain't no Akira.......2006-07-25

Look, hoenstly, I really see no reason to buy this book. It's basically just a bunch of art based on the manga version of Fullmetal Alchemist thrown together. Normally this might be an interesting little novelty for the average fan but when the artwork is as lackluster and amateurish as this, its pretty much a waste of time. You won't be getting Otomo or Miyazaki here let's put it that way.

For fans of the manga.......2006-01-23

Anime fans are out of luck on this one. This is all Hiromu Arakawa's work on the manga. I really like her drawings, and how well she paints and draws always amazes me (Reason for the 5 stars rating).
It focuses on the characters from the manga, though a couple pages are dedicated to the "Fullmetal Alchemist: The Broken Angel" sketches of Armony and the sub-characters.
Basically, if you're a big fan of the manga, good buy, and even more so now that Amazon sells them for around $14.00 or so. But if you're a big fan of the anime, you need one of those TV Fanbooks they sell in Japan. Of course, even if you're more of an anime fan, you could always pick this up and get addicted to Hiromu Arakawa's work...

Great Art Book.......2006-01-04

I got this for my boyfriend and I looked at it before I gave it to him. It's really cool. Hiromu Arakawa has captions for each picture letting you know what different pictures were for, what the pictures are supposed to represent and even how she messed up in different paintings. It's really intersting and worth it for a Fullmetal Alchemist fan.

Loved it.......2005-11-20

i "Watched" this book and Well i gotta say that it was really great. Hiromu Arakawa adds little comments for every picture and it has great artwork. The backgrounds are a little disappointing, but she does really well on the characters in color. And she PAINTS them! THe colors are extrememly bright and vivid.
Hiromu Arakawa is getting better at the characters every year. She's advanced a lot. It's for the manga, not the anime, so if you prefer anime over the manga you may want to get an anime artbook...

American Magus Harry Smith: A Modern Alchemist

Average customer rating:

Intriguing portrait of a very complex man
This is a great introduction to this amazing artist.
Harry Smith from those who knew and didn't know him

American Magus Harry Smith: A Modern Alchemist

Manufacturer: Inanout Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

General | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Contemporary Art | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Art Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Biographies | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Entertainment Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 0962511994

Customer Reviews:

Intriguing portrait of a very complex man.......2004-07-14

I read this book because I was interested in the man who compiled "The Anthology of American Folk Music." By reading these interviews, I have a feeling that what I learned is much more authentic than a straight biography could ever provide. The multiple perspectives are sometimes puzzling and dizzying, but through it all you come to see someone who sought to "unite the opposites", perceive patterns, make connections in what was most of the time highly enjoyable and insightful combinations.

This is a great introduction to this amazing artist........1999-10-02

Harry Smith was an amazing artist and it is about time there is a book about him. I first met him in 1966, and there has been almost nothing written about his amazing accomplishments until now. If you want to understand the one of the most important influences on Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, and Allan Ginsberg (pardon my spelling), this is a must. He is one of the most important figures in the evolution of American art.

Harry Smith from those who knew and didn't know him.......1999-09-01

This book is great for those interested in hearing all the rumors about this great American eccentric, but it fails as a comprehensive book for those who want to read more about his life and studies. Despite the repitition over interviewees covering the same material over and over, the visual element in the book is reproduced quite well. I think a better editing job on the book would have held me better. But for those interested in Harry Smith, this book is a must, as well as the book of interviews released earlier this year, "Think of the Self Speaking: Harry Smith Selected Interviews"

The Art of Fullmetal Alchemist: The Anime

Average customer rating:

Nice, but not as expected

The Art of Fullmetal Alchemist: The Anime
Hiromu Arakawa
Manufacturer: VIZ Media LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Ages 9-12 | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

General | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Manga | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

Look Inside Children's Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books

Look Inside Teen Books | Trip | Specialty Stores | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 1421507668

Book Description

Fullmetal Alchemist began as a manga series in Japan and quickly exploded into a world-wide anime hit. The cool and stylish artwork of the television program has now been compiled into a prestige format, hardcover book for both collectors and fans. Art inspired by the anime, along with initial character designs, cel art, and production notes--all this plus an interview with Yoshiyuki Itoh, the character designer for the anime. Face it true believers, it doesn't get better than this!

Customer Reviews:

Nice, but not as expected.......2006-10-11

This is a gorgeous book that any fan of the anime will love, but it didn't contain what I had expected.
This book has full color illustrations in the anime style. In other words, what you have seen on posters, wallscrolls and the like. There isn't anything like screenshots, but original art in the anime style.

What I HAD been expecting where character, background, and item reference art, such as what would have been used in the production of the anime. The closest to that is a small section with lineart from art in the book, as well as a 'how they do it' section on the steps they take to make the images.

This is a book every Fullmetal fan will love, but I was just expecting a little more from the production aspect of the show, not just images they use in calanders and such.

Alchemy: The Medieval Alchemists and Their Royal Art

Average customer rating:

Exhaustive Treasure-House of Images: Exhausting Text.
splendid!

Alchemy: The Medieval Alchemists and Their Royal Art
Johannes Fabricius
Manufacturer: Thorsons Pub
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Europe | History | Subjects | Books

General | New Age | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

General | Occult | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Magic | Occult | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

Alchemy | Occult | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

History of Science | History & Philosophy | Science | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0850308321

Customer Reviews:

Exhaustive Treasure-House of Images: Exhausting Text........2003-05-26

Practically every old alchemical emblem ever peeled of the printing block is included in this wonderful collection, which is invaluable for this reason alone. The text is a rather muddy analysis along Jungian psychological lines and amounts to little. But the pictures! What a spectacular theatre of bizarre imagery! Indeed the need to interpret is ineluctable. Many volumes have been written offering equally plausable, and mutually exclusive, solutions to the cypher-babble of the alchemists. Since there is no reason to suppose that the medieval sages themselves were all on the same page, no single modern interpretation is sufficient to explain their strange symbols away. Fortunately it's not really necessary to understand these pictures in order to enjoy them - in fact it might easily be said that their very impenetrability is the key to the fascination they hold. All enthusiasts of curious antiquities, students of comparative religion and the migration of symbols, latter-day mystics interested in magic and the occult, could loose hours and hours rapt in close contemplation of this spectacular book. A must-have!

Similar in scope, containing many of the same plates and including a few others exclusively, is "The Golden Game: Alchemical Engravings of the Seventeenth Century" by Stanislas Klossowski de Rola.

splendid!.......2000-06-08

A readable and thorough explanation of the alchemical arts; comes with quality pictures and, even better, commentary on the psychological symbolism of alchemy from both a Jungian and a psychoanalytic perspective.

The Art of Fullmetal Alchemist 2 (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Average customer rating:

Oh the pretty pictures!

The Art of Fullmetal Alchemist 2 (Fullmetal Alchemist)

Manufacturer: VIZ Media LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Graphic Novels | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

General | Manga | Comics & Graphic Novels | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 1421514087

Book Description

A second art book featuring the characters from the top-selling and award-winning manga series, Fullmetal Alchemist. Includes original color artwork from creator, Hiromu Arakawa--each illustration presented in sequential order with commentary from Arakawa himself. Also included are nine pages of detailed character designs for the FMA PS2 video game, plus two pages of brand new manga. Wow!

Customer Reviews:

Oh the pretty pictures!.......2007-10-05

I am biased. I love Full Metal Alchemist. I especially love the manga of Full Metal Alchemist and this art book is works by the manga-ka, Hiromu Arakawa, and nothing from the anime.

And it is chock full of pretty pictures so as a fan, I am completely satisfied.

But with that said, I took one star away because I wish it had more commentary by Arakawa or an interview. There is commentary interspersed with the pictures and I enjoy the humor of them, but I find Arakawa's work so interesting that I'd like to know more of her thoughts on the series and the process she goes through to create the series.

Still, it is what most artbooks are: Full of wonderful, color pictures.

Average customer rating:

Old School and Excellent

The Arts of the Alchemists
Cottie Arthur Burland
Manufacturer: AMS Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General & Reference | Chemistry | Science | Subjects | Books

Customer Reviews:

Old School and Excellent.......2000-06-16

This is an old school book, it reads very academic and clunky. But therein lies it's charm-it's total absence of new age lingo and puffyness. Typical modern garbage on the world of alchemists if usually fluffed with useless detail and modern takes on ancient ways.

Alchemy is half chemistry and half occult philosophy -new age books are totally ignorant in the former and personally manipulative in the latter.

Book Description

The Alchemist has been described as ‘the greatest farce in the English language’. In this newly established edition, Ben Jonson’s rich play offers intriguing insights into London life of the early seventeenth century. He satirises and celebrates the confusions and anarchy of a fast-moving city world populated by a fascinating array of diverse and devious characters.

Download Description

The Alchemist has been described as "the greatest farce in the English language". In this newly established edition, Ben Jonson's rich play offers intriguing insights info London life of the early seventeenth century. He satirises and celebrates the confusions and anarchy of a fast-moving city world populated by a fascinating array of diverse and devious characters. Cambridge Literature is a series of study texts which presents writing in the English-speaking world from the 16th century up to the present day. The series includes novels, drama, short stories, poetry, essays and other types of non-fiction. Each edition has the complete text with an appropriate glossary. The student will find in each volume a helpful introduction and a full section of resource notes encouraging active and imaginative study methods.

Customer Reviews:

The apprentice always gets the treasure chest.......2004-10-11

A comedy that reveals some common traits in Ben Jonson plays. The Alchemist is a crook who, with the help of a woman and a servant, tries to get as much money as possible from anyone who is ready to believe brilliant promises founded on myths like turning lead into gold, or ready palms, or ready the stars and predicting the future, or getting married to some nobleman. It is all a bunch of lies wrapped up in beautiful language that uses a lot of Latin and Greek to make the promises both dim and brilliant, dim in meaning and brilliant in sound. It works very well till the neighbours start complaining about the agitation in the street and in the house, and till the owner of the house comes back and finds out what is going on. But the servant, aptly named Face, manages to get out of the trap by providing the owner of the house with a wife in the shape of a widow that had been brought in to marry a hypothetical Spanish count. She takes the first one that is ready to go through the procedure and it is the landlord. Since she brings a good dowry, this landlord keeps the servant Face in his service. On the other side the two other crooks, Subtle, the Alchemist, and Doll, his woman, have escaped through the backyard leaving everything behind, particularly everything they had been able to get from their gullible clients. Face gets the profit and is purified by his new master. The master of the house easily gets everyone out, all the complainers who do not dare go to a court, especially since they have no written evidence of the tricks they have been the victims of, which would mean they would look like fools. They just drop the matter and go away. Crooks once again work in groups and it is the lowest servant of the band that reveals himself to be more intelligent and swift than his own master, so that he cheats him out of the profit, he manages to get clean out of the business, and he even gets a better position than before. All along Ben Jonson ridicules doctors, puritans, rich people who want to satisfy their ambition for power with quick easy and somewhat magical means. Hence the gullible victims of such crooks are definitely made fun of, though Ben Jonson saves morality in a way by punishing the master crook who loses everything, and yet is immoral because the crook apprentice or helper gets all the profit, hence stealing all the victims of what they had paid or given. Rather brilliant though slightly verbose.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

Great Introduction to Ben Jonson's Comedies.......2002-11-13

I recently read the early 17th century comedy "Volpone", my first introduction to Ben Jonson. I was surprised by how well Jonson's humor had traveled through 400 years of cultural change. I did have difficulty with Jonson's dedication (several pages), the introductory argument, and the prologue as well as a "Pythagorean literary satire" in Act One, Scene One. But thereafter I found the humor to be natural and enjoyable. I even found myself somewhat sympathetic for the unscrupulous Volpone, Mosca, Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino. I immediately hunted around on my dustier bookshelves for other works of Ben Jonson.

"Epicene" was less easy to digest, but was worth the effort. There is a surprising twist in the final scene and I suggest that the reader avoid any literary criticism or introductions to "Epicene" until after your first reading. I had less empathy for the characters in "Epicene" and it was difficult to identify any "good guys". The characters were not terribly disagreeable, but simply dilettantes that had little concern for morality or ethics. The dialogue is more obscure (and more bawdy) than in "Volpone". I found it helpful to first read the footnotes for a scene before actually reading the scene itself.

"The Alchemist" is more like "Volpone". The main characters are unscrupulous con-men; their targets are gullible, greedy individuals. I learned quite a bit about alchemy, at least alchemy as practiced by 17th century con-men. As with "Volpone" and "Epicene", I was unable to predict how Ben Jonson would bring the play to a satisfactory conclusion. I enjoyed "The Alchemist" and I expect that I will read it again. I don't know if it is performed very often, but it would probably be quite entertaining.

"Bartholomew Fair" introduces a large, motley collection of characters that largely converse in lower class colloquialisms that require some effort to master. The comedy was intended in part to be a satire on Puritans and thereby please King James, but it was equally an introduction to the varied individuals that might be encountered at an annual fair. It was not easy to keep track of the many characters and I continually referred to the cast listing to reorient myself.

There are a number of collections of Ben Jonson's plays. I recommend an inexpensive collection, "The Alchemist and Other Plays", publish by Oxford University Press as a World's Classic. The introduction, glossary, and explanatory footnotes by Gordon Campbell are quite good. Begin with either "Volpone" or "The Alchemist" if you are new to Jonson. I hope you are as surprised and pleased as I was.

there are two books called the ALCHEMIST.......2001-04-25

most of the reviews here are for the book by Coehlo-- a modern fairy tale about "following your heart". THE BOOK ON THIS PAGE IS BY BEN JOHNSON the famous renaissance poet. Someone out there in amazon.com land should fix this!!!

Worth the effort.......2000-06-27

Ben Jonson, although modern audiences find him difficult to read, played an important role in the development of the English comedic play. Volpone is a dark comedy that explores the twisted world of a con artist and his toady. The play demonstrates Jonson's awareness of the hypocrisy of social situations. Similarly, Bartholomew Fair takes the reader on a tour of the seamier side of seventeenth century London life. Zeal of the Land Busy, a religious hypocrite, still speaks to our generation when questions of religious expression still plague us. Epicene is a gender-bender in which the ideal silent woman turns out to be a man. The Alchemist, although the most difficult of the plays to read, is worth the effort, as it explores the questions of knowledge, ownership of knowledge, and abuse common in today's world.

aaagghhhh.......2000-02-23

What's going on? You are all referring to the WRONG BOOK

Average customer rating:

Alchemist
Jutta Nestegard , Jon-Ove Steihaug , Poul Erik Tojner , Sigmar Polke , and Michael Juul Holm
Manufacturer: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Modern | Schools, Periods & Styles | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Artists, A-Z | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books

General | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

Sigmar Polke: History of Everything, Paintings and Drawings 1998-2003

ASIN: 8790029534
Release Date: 2001-11-02

Book Description

This modest catalogue provides an exellent introduction to and survey of the paintings of Sigmar Polke, one of the most significant artists of the last 50 years. Since the 1960s, Polke has been making paintings of a deeply ironic nature, works that make fun of the tropes that have dominated the world of modern art. As such, he has situated himself as something of a participant-critic in the dialogue concerning the relevance of painting in recent decades, and has made one of the strongest cases imaginable for its continuing possibilities. With 50 color reproductions of important works from all periods of his career, as well as texts by the curators of both the Louisiana Museum in Denmark and the Astrup Fearnley Museum in Oslo, Norway, Sigmar Polke: Alchemist will be a welcome addition to any collection of books on Sigmar Polke.

Average customer rating:

Alchemist in Life Literature and Art
John Read
Manufacturer: Ams Pr Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 0404184863

Book Description

As is now shown more concisely in this book, mythology and religion, astrology and magic, mysticism and science, literature and art, and many another ingredient-including even music-have contributed to the rise and development of alchemy, and hence of chemistry, the most romantic and picturesque of all the manifold fields of science. The alchemist is first considered realistically in relation to his working background of alchemy, with its intriguing theories and conceptions, its vast literature, and its wealth of cryptic expression and pictorial symbolism. Contents: Alchemy and Alchemists: Nature and Origin of Alchemy, Alchemical Theory, Some Alchemical Tenets, Operations of the Great Work, Alchemical Expression and Symbolism, Types of Alchemists; The Alchemist in Literature: An Alchemist among the Canterbury Pilgrims, An Alchemist in Jacobean London, An Alchemist tells of Himself; The Alchemist in Art: Durer's "Melencolia", Weiditz, Brueghel, Stradanus, de Bry, The Mystical Alchemist in Art, Teniers, van Ostade, Steen, Bega, Wijick, Other Dutch Painters, A Spanish Alchemical Painting, Later Alchemical Paintings, Wright of Derby.

The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art

Average customer rating:

The Alchemist in Life, Literature and Art
John. Read
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson and Sons,
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000WW56ZK

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books