Haibane Renmei - In the Town of Guri, in the Garden of Charcoal Feathers

This wonderful art book is a treasure trove of concept art from the anime 'Haibane Renmei', ranging from rough pencil sketches to stunning full colour pieces. The text is all in Japanese, however it consists of very brief captions to each drawing, mostly quotes from the series. You can find some fan translations floating around if you look hard enough.

One of the elements that drew me to this book is that it manages to capture the peaceful, warm, almost ethereal, tone of the series. Focusing on every day scenes of the characters' lives and the world around them, it avoids the heavily descriptive and annotated style of most other art books that deal with anime series.

It's long out of print and hard to find, but if you're at all interested show more in the series or ABe's work you should definitely pick it up given the chance. show less