Carnival Phantasm 1st Season

Received over a month ago but unable to do a proper review until now, Carnival Phantasm 1st Season, the OVA series that commemorates TYPE-MOON's 10th anniversary.

Carnival Phantasm, the limited edition book Catalogue and the Toranoana exclusive postcard.

The contents and all the leaflets. It includes both a dvd version and a Blu-ray version. Except for the floating menu in the blu-ray version, the contents are the same.

As every one knows, Carnival Phantasm is based in a couple of manga anthologies by Takenashi Eri called TAKE MOON that were released several years ago:

The episodes were rather nice and much more faithful to the original chapters than I expected. The biggest part in each of the four episodes included is actually a short story from the anthology:

Some minor characters that appeared in some of the stories were changed for the OVA for more popular and newer characters. For example, in the beach volleyball chapter Akira, Hanei and Souka were changed for Miyako and Sion (and Len doesn't play)
Some of the mini-gags are also faithfully based in the short stories, like Phantasmoon:

The Blu-ray it doesn't contains many extras besides the audio track "Teach me Ciel-sensei" written by Nasu itself that features Ciel-sensei and Neco-Arc loosely explaining the situations and characters on screen.

This is the floating menu in the blu-ray, featuring all the necos; the already old Neco-Arc and Neco-Arc Chaos plus the newly added Neco-Arc Bubbles (voiced by Ciel's VA Sakuma Kumi) and Neco-Arc Destiny (voiced by Caster's VA Tanaka Atsuko).

The limited edition extra, Catalogue, is an over 250 pages long artbook that compiles Takeuchi Takashi's illustrations in the last 10 years.

The format is rather small (is the same size of a dvd box) and 95 % of the contents already appeared in other media, but as a Takeuchi fan is definitely a must have and probably the best TYPE-MOON artbook available.

The contenst are divided in sections covering each franchise: Tsukihime, Melty Blood, Kara no Kyoukai, Fate/stay night, Fate/hollow ataraxia, Fate/stay night [Realta Nua], Fate others (Fate Zero, Unlimited Codes and EXTRA) and Others.

Some random photos:

Tsukihime illustrations from 2001-2002 period.

Usually each section contains a newly drawn pic. In Tsukihime section is the Arcueid to the left.

Melty Blood pictures.

Kara no Kyoukai

Fate/stay night newly drawn Saber to the left.

The Fate Others section

Fate Zero pictures from the drama cds

Thee others section includes the covers of the Vampire Wars novels.

CANAAN

Guest illustrations for Kannagi, Gainax (Fushigi no Umi no Nadia) and for the Tactics eroge Harem Party

B&W pictures used in stuff like Comic Market catalogs.

The 2nd season was released this week, so I expect my copy at the end of November...

Canaan Official Fanbook

Canaan Official Fanbook was also released in February '10 by Ichijinsha.

Is mostly a compilation of pictures and a episode digest, but is the only easily available artbook for CANAAN, and considering there's no word for the movies announced, this may be the last piece of merchandise related to that anime (not counting the ongoing manga).

The gallery section is quite extensive, and covers most of the pictures that appeared on magazines and advertisements.

This time there are works by Takeuchi in the gallery. In terms of fidelity to the original Takeuchi's designs, CANAAN is the closest from all the TYPE-MOON anime adaptations.

Even the fan-service pictures are somewhat in-character.

The pictures used to promote and model the 1/8 Canaan and the 1/8 Alphard figures by Good Smile Company.

Setting material for the anime. The ones on the upper left are the ones used in the bonus chapter of 428 ~Fuusa Sareta Shibuya De~.

Summary for each episode...

...with special "pick-up moments" for the key scenes. Poor Liang Qi...

Opening with the storyboard.

And finally some interview with the cast. In the photo, Sawashiro Miyuki (voice of Canaan) and Nanjou Yoshino (Maria).

And Sakamoto Maaya (Alphard seiyuu).

The other side of the cover features Alphard as well.

Type-Moon Ace 6

Type-Moon Ace Vol. 6 was released last December, and featured the guidelines of TYPE-MOON related projects for the year 2011. Since this magazine is 2 months old, every piece of information has already been discussed everywhere.

Fate/Zero will be getting an anime adaptation by ufotable. The director will be Aoki Ei (Ga-Rei Zero, the first Kara no Kyoukai movie...).

A manga adaptation of Fate/Zero by Shinjiro is being serialized in Young Ace as well.

There's a small gallery of Koyama drawings for Mahou Tsukai no Yoru. No fixed release date yet besides "this Winter", so either it will be released in the following 20 days before Spring or it will be delayed yet again...

Rough sketches of Girl's Work heroine Asube Shirube.

The sub-characters Miyamoto Ariso (right) and Kurayamizaka Jizeru (Giselle?) (left).

Girl's Work story is by Hoshizora Meteo (Kusarihime 〜euthanasia〜, Forest) and the character designs by Takenashi Eri (Kannagi), so is a TYPE-MOON project only in name, since neither Nasu nor Takeuchi are working on it.
Is not completely stated, but it really seems that the VN was discarded in favor of the anime.

Rough sketches for the OVA Carnival Phantasm. Based in an anthology comic by Takenashi Eri, directed by Kishi Seiji (Angel Beats!) and the animation is going to be produced by the newly established studio Lerche (that will do an anime adaptation of Maji de Watashi ni Koishinasai! too).

Info for the already released epilogue chapter of Kara No Kyoukai and the limited BD box set.

Mahotsukai no Hako stuff.

An interview with Nasu Kinoko regarding Fate/EXTRA, with illustrations by Wada Arco.

An interview with Matou Sakura's seiyuu Shitaya Noriko.

A Dollfie Saber Lily photo session.

And the usual bunch of manga section:

All Around TYPE-MOON by Bsuke

Arcuetyp by ACPI

Melty Blood X by Kirishima Takeru

A X'mas special chapter of CANAAN by Ishida Akira

A Fate/Zero one shot comic starring a maid Sola-Ui and Kayneth El-Melloi drawn by Kurohachi.

Another one-shot by Medori featuring gender-swapped Fate/stay night characters. In the picture Kotomine, Rider, Sakura, Rin, Archer, Shirou and Taiga gender-swapped.

A short chapter of Fate/stay night by Nishiwaki Datto. Assassin being harassed by Caster by wearing female clothes.

Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Illya 2wei! bonus chapter starring Sella and Leysritt, by Hiroyama Hiroshi.

A Fate/EXTRA one-shot by Robina

And HibiChika Time by Oomori Hayashi.

The extra DVD contains a Kara No Kyoukai trailer and 3 episodes called Type-Moon Ace Omake Gekijou.
The first and second episodes contains the Extra versions of Saber, Caster, Archer and Sakura answering several questions about Fate/EXTRA world.
In the 3rd chapter, Extra Sakura, tired of being only a neglected side character, kidnaps the main character Master (both the male and female version) and fights against the Servants.

Dark Sakura decides to attack all the time, while the other 3 are guarding, thus counterattacking all the attacks.

Caster and Saber realizing that their Master is actually the same person.