New Retro Illustrations: Retro Reimagined by a New Generation - Paperback

by Various Artists (Illustrator)

Retro but modern.
This is the new trend, the new way, the new form of illustration created by the new generation.
"New retro", a combination of the word "New" and "Retrospective", is a newly coined phrase meaning "appreciating and enjoying something old while reimagining it into something modern." This book introduces 40 up-and-coming illustrators working in this "new retro" style. Through the 300 illustrations showcased in this one book, readers can appreciate and enjoy retro culture, items and motifs reimagined and transformed into something new.
Retro culture, along with items such as 80s/90s fashion, neon lights, old Japanese anime/movies, and retro items like cassette tapes and Polaroid cameras, are now being reappraised by younger generations, who did not experience them in real time. The "New Retro" artistic movement, which began as a new and cool subculture before sparking a trend that took off in Japan in the late 2000s, has now become an established genre among illustrators and continues to influence and attract many creators in the industry with its magical appeal.
This "New Retro" wave in the art, music and fashion industries in Japan brings a somewhat retro but also modern and trendy feel to popular culture. This collection gathers together the most notable New Retro artists and their works to give readers the most up-to-date, cutting-edge collection of this unique style, and will surely be an important reference book for those who want to appreciate and enjoy the essence of these updated and reimagined retro motifs.

Front Jacket

This book bearing the title of "New Retro" is a collection of illustrations by artists whose style is inspired primarily by the manga comics and anime of the 1980s and '90s.
With its distinctive vivid neons, and pale pastel hues, theirs is a style that is easy to spot. Other clues are lightly drawn lines, the design qualities of the hand-drawn lettering, and motion lines, all stemming from shoujo (girls') and seinen (men's) manga. The artists' choice of motifs is another delight: locations, and clothing for their characters, redolent of the Showa era, or recalling the heady years of the "bubble" economy. Experimenting with this style has been especially noticeable since the 2010s. It is clearly distinguishable from the computer-game-like design, and bishoujo anime featuring cute young girls, that gained popularity from 2000 onward as "otaku" style. That is to say, it references an earlier time.
Retro crazes that revive styles and formats from the past occur frequently, and are fundamentally based on nostalgia, i.e. a yearning or admiration for a long-gone era.
Yet this "New Retro" is somewhat different in aspect. Obviously, the artists in question do each harbor a certain fondness for the past. Was Japan really a place of such excess in the bubble era, the later Showa years? These artists bring to life in their pictures what is now virtually the stuff of legend. Yet among all the decorative delights, they deliberately mix in other elements, things that were not there in the past, strictly speaking were suppressed, whether that be a certain sort of eroticism, violence, psychological freedom...or apathy.
First and foremost though, they are simply cherry-picking agreeable bits from the archives, so to speak, in a trend unmistakably connected with the now standard use of the likes of pixel art and synthwave in the gaming world. The late Showa and bubble years have become objectified, allowing artists to make choices with a neutral mindset, their options widened by the scope and spread of the internet. This style is now moving beyond a boom to become properly established, which suggests there is more to it than mere generational nostalgia. And therein lies the significance of the "New" Retro.
Sayawaka
Critic / author of manga