Lain by Yoshitoshi Abe

This is a small doodle on an official Lain sketch card by the legendary mangaka and character designer Yoshitoshi Abe.

Mr Abe was invited to a convention in Belgium and some (very few, like 3 every day out of 60) fans picked up at a draw would get a small remark. I wasn’t one of the lucky few but managed to find this recently from an undisputed source. The card was brought to fans by Mr Abe during his appearance.

I discovered Abe’s work through his deeply involved participation in Serial Experiment Lain which hit me like a ton of bricks at the perfect age. What if David Cronenberg or, even closer, David Lynch directed an animated series in Japan? The result was ambitious and full of mood, a true masterpiece.

After leaning more about his work and approach, any participation to any anime production would warrant that I watched it such as the quite fun NieA 7, the ambitious Texhnolyze and the superb Haibane Renmei. I collected his artbooks, his self-published dojinshi production and his manga output (like the cute Ryūshika Ryūshika).

He is quieter nowadays and my enthusiasm for his work has diminished somehow but this remains a huge get. Mangaka/Character designer rarely or simply do not sell their art, so to obtain something even so small from SUCH a cult artist is super cool. Japanese otakus would kill for something like this.