Yone-san!! ~~><~~
I guess Kazuki Yone is no longer working with Otomate, aka Design Factory, aka Idea Factory.
That means no more beautiful Hakuoki art in the future. *cries*
This is the recent ad for IF's artist training course, featuring Amnesia, Hiiro no Kakera, and Moujuutsukai to Oujisama. No Hakuoki.
But last year the same ad has ONLY HAKUOKI. What happened? Hakuoki isn't out of date. It's still the #1 best seller in Otomate, the only title with currently running anime series, and with the first 3D game coming up next month. In fact, Hakuoki is still mentioned again and again in the course description, just without pics.
Using Amnesia and Moujuutsukai in the ad is reasonable, since they are beautiful. But Hiiro no Kakera! LOL! That joke! If Otomate simply wants to give Hiiro no Kakera more exposure because it'll be animated soon, Kazuki Yone's art would be 100 times better. But they used the horrible pics drawn by the pathetic Yone-wannabe!
Kazuki Yone's arts, both Hakuoki & Hiiro no Kakera, were deliberately left out.
Idea Factory only managed to make 2 titles into TV series - Hakuoki & Hiiro no Kakera. (Generation of Chaos was OVA, and a very low quality one BTW.) Both of them have Kazuki Yone as character design and main artist. I guess it's obvious who made these titles so popular. (Seiyuu don't make huge difference, since it's basic requirement for every otome game.) I can only think of one reason for them to leave out their top-notch artist like this - Otomate don't wanna hire her anymore.
Judging from what's written in Yone-san's blog before (Otomate won't pass her letters from fans like they used to, and she's not drawing for otome games for a while), I suspect her departure isn't very pleasant. O_o
Otherwise I don't see why they won't invite Yone-san to teach in this course, as she did last year.
About artworks this summer and autumn.
Long-term projects like DGS Hakuoki Monthly & Sekkaroku limited edition are still advertised as "by Kazuki Yone".
But recent artworks were all labeled "newly drawn"(anonymous) or "by Design Factory" instead. Examples:
Tsuisou Emaki
Otomate CD Book #2
Boys in yukata, in Hakuoki Otokomae Set: Fundoshi
While everyone exclaimed "OMG so sexy!" at Monthly's cover art, these got comments like "what's wrong with the new artworks lately?"
Tsuisou Emaki is only slightly inconsistant. But in CD Book #2 everyone's smile looks fishy, especially Heisuke's smiling like a raccoon and Saitou's smiling like an idiot. Saitou wouldn't smile like that dammit!
Fundoshi's are err... awkward in every way. Souji's smiling like an idiot left arm looks like a bent straw. When first seeing these, I thought they're 3rd rate fanarts. (On Pixiv you can find many fanarts better than these.) Maybe that's why no one felt like scanning them. I can't even find a photo for Heisuke. It's understandable though, since his closeup on the cover is already scary enough.
It seems that these weird arts are done by another Yone-wannabe, unless Yone-san's right hand suffered serious spasms when she's drawing. But her most recent Saitou →
for B's-Log October 2011 issue is still dazzling as usual.
BTW, B's-Log advertised "October cover by Kazuki Yone!!" whenever they could.
See? If something is Yone-san's art, anyone would proudly announce "made by Kazuki Yone" rather than some shabby "Design Factory" or anonymous!
Many fans sneer at manga adaptation and novel artwork. But I can accept those. Of course they are far, far from being as good as Kazuki Yone. But they are decent, and most importantly, HONEST.
IF's recent doing is FRAUD. They are misleading fans into believing a wannabe's work is Yone-san's. It doesn't matter how closely that wannabe mimics. (Besides, Fundoshi ones aren't even close.) It's scam. If there's no intend to cheat, then show the artist's name, like in Hanaoni. Even though Hanaoni's artist is another clone of Kazuki Yone, at least she's no lier.
It's sad that there probably won't be anymore Kazuki Yone art for Hakuoki, but crippled copycat crap instead. *sigh* I knew all along that Idea Factory (including its daughter company Design Factory & Otomate) is a shameless company which would do anything to get quick cash, instead of trying to make more good games. Well at least it'd save me some dough. 'Cause I ain't buying those.
Update on 2012/08/01
The anime staff invited Kazuki Yone to draw cover arts and some promo art for anime. So here are the new ones.
Sekkaroku #6
limited ed.
Reimeiroku TV
anime ED single
Reimeiroku TV
anime OP single
Reimeiroku DVD/BD
bonus poster
All Reimeiroku DVD/BD limited cover art
Sadly, game covers and calendars for 2012 & 2013 are still drawn by the half-ass copycat unworthy of showing her name. Victims list: Reimeiroku DS, Reimeiroku Nagorigusa, and Yuugiroku 2. And horrible game CGs in Yuugiroku 2. After half a year her art is still stiff and unnatural. Lines drew straight like a ruler. Sausage fingers. Cardboard face. Retarded Cheshire Cat smile for everyone, regardless of the character.
Otomate still don't dare to show her name. They only dare to use her crap for unimportant games.
Hakuoki 3D, since it's the core of the series, they can't risk to ruin it so old artworks by Kazuki Yone are used.
Otomate KNOWS FULL WELL this copycat sucks. Stop blindly defending Otomate.