ISBN#: 978-4-86233-244-8
Publisher: Capcom
Release Date: December 21st, 2009
Retail Price: 2,000 Yen
Format: A-4
Pages: 176
JetZero's review of the the Mega Man Official Complete Works got me in the mood to do what I've been meaning to do for the RPM wiki a long time ago. And that is actually summarizing and giving you all a visual tour of what's in so many of the Rockman manga and artbooks I have. I'm just incredibly slow at it. ^^;
Exactly the same size as the Rockman Zero and Ryuusei no Rockman Official Complete Works, the Rockman.EXE Official Complete Works is divided into four separate chapters. The table of contents also has a short section with the release dates of every game from the series.
~ Chapter 1: Graphic (pages 3-24)This section contains beautiful full-page artwork that was most commonly used for promotional purposes, ranging from EXE 2's back-to-back HeatGuts Style Rockman and normal Rock, to EXE 5's Forte Cross Rockman gold vs. silver battle, to the newer EXE OSS promotional art. It also contains the game cover art for each title. Variations included in the case of EXE 3 onward, of course.
~ Chapter 2: Character (pages 25-49: Humans, pages 50-89: Navis, pages 90-94: Viruses)As you probably expected, this section shows off all of the official artwork for both humans and Navis. Humans come first, led off by Netto in all his various incarnations, his family, and best friends. Next is a single page for the villains, including Wily, Regal, Shun, and the Professor. (Good news! Oh my, yes...) From that point on, NetOps are displayed by order they first appeared. For example, the very first NetOp is Hinoken. His EXE 1 artwork is the largest, but his EXE 2, 3 and 6 art is also on that same page. There is no alphabetical rhyme or reason to who is on what page, so I assume it was mostly arranged to fit based on how many pieces of art each character had. Each character has their name listed next to their Navi's crest, along with another number. That number actually corresponds to the page their concept artwork is on in Chapter 3 of this book.
Following the Humans are their Navi counterparts. As expected, Rockman leads off. His pages not only include his official art, but some battlechip imagery for Rockman-themed chips like Sword Mode, Kawairimi, Invisible and Iai Form. That is followed by his official form artwork: Style Changes, Soul Unisons, Beast Outs and Crosses. There is a small section with one piece of art for helper programs (Tango, Rush, Beat and Mr. Prog.) mixed in with the Style Changes. The format is similar to the humans in that Rock is followed by his friends, Roll, Blues, Guts and Glyde. Then Navis are shown by the first game they appeared in, with all of their art on the same page. Shadowman for example first appeared in EXE 1, so his art from that game appears along with his art from EXE 2, 4.5, 5 Team of Colonel, and four different chip artworks. It's neat that most Navis have their Mega or Giga battlechip artwork also next to their official art, even if those images aren't nearly as big as they should be. There are some exceptions, such as Iceman, Laserman, and every Navi from EXE 6, who don't have any chip artwork. Why EXE 6's chip art is missing is puzzling to me, considering they got even more use in the arcade game Battle Chip Stadium, and the most current. At the very end of the Navi pages, the bosses get some love, and again, most have chip art.
To finish off this Chapter, viruses from each game get their fifteen minutes of official art fame. Still divided by game from 1-6. Although in their case, there never was "new" official art each game for returning viruses, so once you've seen the Mettaur art from EXE1, there is no newer version from any of the following titles.
~ Chapter 3: Draft (pages 95-115: Humans, pages 116-150: Navis, pages 151-157: Viruses, pages 158-160: Anime)The numbers by each character's name in Chapter 2 leads you to their concept artwork in Chapter 3. In Chapter 3, the reverse is true. So that's kind of a nice feature if you're looking for a certain character's imagery. The format is the exact same as in Chapter 2. While most of these concepts were featured in EXE no Himitsu, there still are many new nuggets to gaze in amazement at. Some range from mere color scheme alterations, to drastic physical changes or even different demeanors.
In the case of Navis who were contest entry winners, such as Gateman, Bowlman, Laserman or Clockman, their entry art is also featured. While Laserman's look appears to have absolutely no difference in design (other than the fact that his original entry looked like he was drawn by a 4-year old), somebody like Cosmoman is totally different from the original winning entry. And it's neat to have a look at the various concepts he went through before becoming the character we all know. Some Navis also have multiple options for their Navi Crests. Zero's other options were kind of neat, and they did consider his X-series trademark "Z" in a unique way. Thankfully there is more artwork for the Transmission Navis in this section. In the Character Chapter, only Starman and Zero have full-body artworks. Needle, Bright, Sword and Gravity have their detailed artwork in this section only. Other goodies in this chapter include height charts from almost every game, along with art for all the generic NPCs, who were shown no love in Chapter 2.
Viruses have a few more pages themselves, and then the chapter ends with some concept work from the anime. Most of the anime's imagery just contains sketches of Team Cross Fusion. All 13 members have their art included, but the biggest focus for whatever reason is on CF Rockman, Medi, and Miss Magnetbirthinghips. Special pieces include CF Kurohige and Chirol, Greizar, Zoano-Plantman, Zoano-Beast Out Sparkman, Iris, Slur, and lil' kiddy Netto, Meiru, Enzan, Mariko, Yuriko and Dingo. While it would be nice to see even more from the anime-only characters included, that probably would require a whole book in itself. It was nice they included as much as they did, although I wish it wasn't crammed into just three pages.
~ Chapter 4: Extra (pages 161-175)To close out the book, the Extra Chapter begins with 5 pages of every single battlechip artwork smushed together. Again, why some of these were not with their Navi counterparts in Chapter 2 befuddles me. They are tiny, and still in order by game. Transmission, 4.5 and OSS have like between 5-15 each between them. Otherwise the main 6 games have the complete selection, color alterations for each level chip included.
Then there are a few smaller sections focusing on memorabilia art, starting with e-reader/Noise Kaizou cards. There is a half page devoted to Boktai crossover characters Django, Hakushaku, and Otenku. The following pages have some art that was used on cards, plus various logos like IPC, Gospel, and Nebula. War Rock and a Denpa-kun also cameo. Next up is a section with some art from the EXE website. Below it are random memorabilia items such as a Dekao shirt, Blues plushie, the EXE4-5 OST, gashaphon figures and a Wood Soul toy. There are also a couple early concepts for Netto and Rockman which we saw in EXE no Himitsu. And then a page for the PETs, in which the real focus is the variations of Progress PETs for every single EXE 5 character.
Finally, at the very end, we get four pieces of special artwork. The first two are drawn by longtime Rockman series designer and producer Hayato Kaji, and character designer Yuji Ishihara. Their artwork is followed by one-page spreads from manga artists Ryo Takamisaki, whose 13-volume series was translated by Viz into the English NT Warrior manga, and Miho Asada of Battle Story fame.
For EXE enthusiasts, this book is truly more complete than any of the three previously-released artbooks. It's our first chance to see numerous pieces of art, or in many cases, the first time we get to see the full body images without them being cut off or covered by text and other graphics. With so many different characters in the series, it's nice that none are disrespected in terms of coverage. As I mentioned before, due to the sheer size of the EXE world, there are plenty of things that could have been expanded upon, given their own pages, or blown up in size a little. This book easily could have been expanded into something the size of R20. There really needs to be an artbook devoted to the battlechip imagery alone, because whenever they are put in these books, unfortunately they are just so small! But I was glad to see so many get some inclusion in this book. All in all, worth the buy. And while it's not text-heavy by any means, I can't wait for UDON to get around to translating it to read the little snippets for each character's design.