The Random Museum: 夢想少女 by 宇一 (2019)

 Artbook time! and a very nice one it is, by another far from unknown illustrator – 宇一 (Uiti) can count on more than 100k followers on Twitter , has just published a new, non-dōjin artbook, and is generally one of those illustrators you will often find featured on daily Pixiv collections. They sport an increasingly common visual take on the bishōjo pinup genre, which sets aside the shiny, plastic-like sheen of anime-inspired visuals for a more daring, blocky visual language based around bold colors mutuated from 2000s’ vector art. It reminds me a fair bit of Hirotaka Tanaka, in fact.

 夢想少女 (Reverie Girl) is a full color, 18 pages booklet collection of pinups by Uiti, centered around the concept of bautiful girls and daydreams / dreams imagery. Girls dancing with moon and stars, sailing over seas of crystal, bizzarre animals come together to create prime Pixiv material. Uiti’s style is one I really dig: extremely clean, at times almost geometric in design, with little interest in backgrounds which are often abstract even when they are the center of the image’s theme. There is definitely quite a bit of pop-like Murakami  / Satoshi Kon visual inspiration, although the themes themselves are not a particularly large departure from your typical ‘cool anime illustration’ floating around the internet. This is all about style, and sometimes that’s all you need.