The art book "Inomata Mutsumi Art Book MIA" (Gakken) by the late illustrator Inomata Mutsumi, who passed away in March last year and is known for his character designs for the popular game series "Tales of" and "Future GPX Cyber Formula", went on sale on June 26th. It is A4 format, 100 pages and costs 2,860 yen.
Inomata began working as an animator in the late 1970s, and was involved in character design for "Plawres Sanshiro" and "Genmu Senki Leda," as well as the original character design for "Future GPX Cyber Formula" and the main design for "Brain Powered." He also worked on illustrations for "Dragon Quest Novels," "Space Prince," and "Wind Continent," and was a long-time collaborator in character design for the "Tales of" game series, starting with "Tales of Destiny." He passed away in March 2024.
"MIA" is the first art book to be newly planned and edited after his death. It features original illustrations that were published for the first time, depicting the motifs of "cats" and pretty "girls" that Inomata loved his whole life, as well as licensed illustrations from the "Future GPX Cyber Formula" series and the "Tales of" series, and cover illustrations for the free paper "Mantan Broad" (Mainichi Shimbun). It also includes many works that have never been published before, such as original illustrations for the anime "Makyou Densetsu Acrobunch," which was Inomata's debut as a character designer.
To commemorate the release, a publication commemorative exhibition will be held from July 3rd to 13th at the flagship store of the art brand "EDITION88" in Tokyo Design Center (Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo). Open from noon to 6pm, closed Monday to Wednesday. Admission is free.
As a gift to purchasers, there will also be a campaign in which 100 people will be entered into a lottery to win a set of 10 message cards written by 11 writers with ties to Inomata, including Kawamura Maria/Nagano Mamoru (co-authors), and Takada Akemi.
◇The authors are as follows (in alphabetical order, titles omitted):
Mari Kawamura/Mamoru Nagano (co-author)▽Akemi Takada▽Miku Nanase▽Masae Hashimoto▽ Mitsuo Fukuda ▽Keiko Fukuyama▽Jun Mayuzuki▽ Haruhiko Mikimoto ▽Takahiro Yoshimatsu
