Panzer Angel Gabriel (book).

[Roger]

Panzer Angel Gabriel is a science fiction story involving powered suits that Studio Nue members Kazutaka Miyatake and Naoyuki Katoh concieved in the mid-1980s. They never found a sponsor for it, so the concept was mothballed. 20 years later, publisher Laputa convinced them to revisit it, re-presenting it in a new book.

The book is 208 pages, about 1/3 of them featuring color artwork by Katoh and the rest heavily loaded with black and white design sketches. The book also features an interview with former Studio Nue member Shoji Kawamori and an essay by Mr. Katoh's about his powered suit design used on the cover of Joe Haldeman's The Forever War.

All of this is wrapped in a nifty translucent plastic cover. I strongly recommend this for those who appreciate the 80s mecha shows, powered suit junkies, and fans of Studio Nue's work. Get it, you won't be disappointed. The ISBN is 978-4-947752-84-0, the price is 2,900 yen and it's available at Amazon Japan:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/機甲.../dp/494775284X/

[drifand]

Got this last year (Dec '08, haha) when I was in Tokyo... it is a beautiful book. Some of the commentaries are pretty funny, like Miyatake groaning over his lousy English tech-terminology :-)

Toward the end of the book, they even included 1/6 scale scratch-built renditions of the base armor suits plus the various 'power up' add-ons. Great stuff!

[AcroRay]

Wow - that does sound very interesting. Thanks for posting that, Rog.