japanese artists....

[Ming]

the other day i was at this japanese bookstore and i was looking in the art section,since i don't read or speak japanese i was having a hard time choosing what book to get.some books had an awesome cover but what if the inside was crappy(the books were shrink wrapped).i'm not into the bug eye anime either tho some of that art i find interesting.aside from terada who else is out there that is worth the $50+ that i'm willing to shell out for a book

also a friend of mine recommended nirasawa anybody have some sample of his?

[Inkthinker]

Katsuya Terada is pretty bad-ass...

[chojinlocke]

I always dig amano.
http://www.amanosworld.com/
Plus, there is a new art book out here in the states. I saw it in Borders just the other day.

[The Xenos]

Yup. Amano and Terada are favorites of mine. My last gf got me hooked on Amano. I'be been picking up wallscrolls and art books. Even found some nice quality cards. I even found his erotic one Alice Erotica on sale at a Japanese bookstore and had to get it.

I got a cool Terada book with like 1000 pages of his sketches. Pretty cool stuff.

As for strange pop art that would make Andy Warhol do a double take, check out Takashi Murakami. He's got some crazy stuff. I saw him at the MFA in Boston. Almost got him to autograph his artbook. They didn't have some of his more risque stuff at the exhibit, but it was still pretty crazy.

-Xenos

[SpydaWeb]

Amano is fine in doses, but not a whole artbook of his stuff.

I'd say go for folks like Takumi Nagayasu; Hiroaki Samura; Katsuhiro Otomo; Yoshitoshi Abe; Renji Murata; and the aforementioned Katsuya Terada who has such an amazing range and imagination.

[chojinlocke]

I think a whole Amano artbook is great although a bit dense. I dig that he did the designs for Gatchaman.

I dig Yasuhiko Yoshikazu as well. He is super cool.

[Buzz Dixon]

Here's a website with tons of links to Japanese artists (among others):

http://cipango.typepad.com/

[The Xenos]

Oh yeah, Abe and Murata are also awesome. Similar to Murata, though a bit more erotic and sexualized (like Shirow's greased up newer works), is Tsukasa Jun. Bought one of this doujins which wasn't too pornographic. The thing on the cover looked like a grown up Eraserhead and I always liked his style, so I picked it up.

-Xenos