by Aiko Nunokawa, Sanrio Company Ltd
on 15 September 2016
Style: Contains Extras, double page printing
Pages: 80
Format: Card cover, Dust Jacket, Glue & Stitched
Fans of Hello Kitty, Little Twin Stars, Kikirara, My Melody and Patty & Jimmy will adore this coloring book for adults. Filled with cute images and your favorite characters you will have hours of fun coloring these characters.
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Smile! – Hello Kitty Coloring Book Review
This gorgeous Japanese coloring book features some super cute pictures of Hello Kitty on the front. When I seen it online, it reminded me of one of my You Tube subscribers (who has an adorable Hello Kitty avatar – Hi Kim!). Not seeing inside the book is always a concern when buying online so I wasn’t really sure what my “Hello Kitty” would look like when it arrived ..or if it was Hello Kitty. Google translate wasn’t a lot of help..translating the title to “Only trace of Sanrio popular character ! Illustrations drill” which is not exactly snappy or descriptive 🙁
Relying heavily on Google Translate I discovered that the author is Sanrio Company Ltd and Aiko Nunokawa, who is the illustrator. Sanrio owns the licensing for Hello Kitty products among others. I am quite certain that we have seen coloring books illustrated by Aiko previously. Please feel free to correct me if anyone speaks Japanese 🙂 It appears that Sanrio have taken the opportunity to combine a number of their popular characters in the one coloring book including Hello Kitty, Little Twin Stars (Kikirara), My Melody and Patty & Jimmy.
Here’s a little secret for you, I adore cartoon merchandise. My fave is Betty Boop, lamps, clocks, chairs, snowglobes, cups, clothes, cookie jars …and my collection is so big I can no longer fit it in my house 🙂 I’m also quite partial to Disney and let’s just say I’ve got an obsessive personality and leave it at that 🙂 Visiting the Sanrio shop made me swoon – so much cuteness!
Cover & Layout
Looking at the cover of the Smile! coloring book makes you want to …smile! It’s so cute and pretty with Hello Kitty dotted around the cover. The art work has a “hand colored” appearance about it as well adding to the charm that it wasn’t perfectly digitally colored. There is some line art to color in as well on the removable glossy dust jacket. The back cover is just as adorably cute with a mix of colored art and line art for you to color in. You would probably need markers to color the cover as it is glossy and may prove resistant to other mediums.
The book measures approximately 9.9in x 9.9 in.
Inside the cover of the book is kraft type card with gorgeous illustrations in a Christmas inspired theme. Sadly, there is nothing to color on the reverse of the dust jacket or card cover 🙁
Hello Kitty!
As we often see with Japanese coloring books there is also a little extra. This cute Hello Kitty styled coloring book is no exception. Inside there are two rice paper thin protective sheets. These have been colored in a double page spread and feature Strawberry King and Mr Melody (there are bunnies!). These protective sheets have also been included at the end of the book as well.
The title page features the characters from the cover art of the book. As always, I would have loved to see the cover art reproduced as the title page here. As they must read my mind, they have included a refined version of the cover art on the reverse of the title page.
A page of text, in Japanese, follows and then 3 pages of thumbnails providing a visual index for the Smile! coloring book. All of these pages would make a great spot to test out your mediums and see how they react with your coloring style. There are also a few text based pages at the end of the book that also would be suitable for resting mediums.
The illustrations have been printed on both sides of the cool white paper. Most of the images are double page spreads but there are 10 illustrations that have been confined to a single page. The paper is a medium quality and has a slight texture to it making it idea for layering pencils.
There are some single page illustrations throughout the book
Illustrations
This book is pure fun for fans of Hello Kitty and friends. You will find cute double page scenes featuring Hello Kitty sitting on ice cream sundaes and Mr Melody in a garden setting. There is a large variety of things to color in including food, florals, gardens, gift boxes and carousel horses.
There are some lovely single page illustrations in the book as well, my fave being Hello Kitty surrounded by flowers.
The line art has been created using a dull black. The line weight tending to be a medium throughout with some details in a finer line. The use of the dull black tends to produce an appearance that is not as crisp as some line art. Visually, though I haven’t needed to reach for the glasses 🙂
There are images that have been created with a large amount of open space, making it easy for colorists of all skill levels to color. However, there are a handful of pages (particularly the spread of stamps) that have smaller, tighter details and these may prove challenging if you have minor visual impairment or health issues, like arthritis.
Most of the double page spreads within the book run to the centre of the spine, always tricky to access and color. However, the binding on this book is wonderful making it fold down flat so all parts of the image can be colored.
Bonus
A little treat I often find with the Japanese coloring books is an extra added at the back. Smile! has the double page colored protective sheets but …there’s also some extra treats as well. On the same paper are two further pages. Each page features 2 pictures/notecards? that can be cut out and colored.
Little notecards to cut out and color (for some reason this image is stuck and won’t rotate for me – I’ll keep trying – but sorry you’ll have to move your head for the moment)
Smile – Hello Kitty Coloring Book Video Review
Where to buy Smile! – Hello Kitty Coloring Book
| Etailer | Amazon Japan | Yes Asia – Free Shipping |
Happy coloring x
Lea
What a cute book! Initially I thought it would be too childish but I found as you turned through the pages that there are many pages I would enjoy coloring! Since discovering the coloring craze in July of this year I now have 22 coloring books. The problem is I keep finding more I would love to have! Thank you for what you do!
This little Hello Kitty and friends coloring book has founds its way into my heart! It’s soooo cute! I know what you mean about finding new books – I had to reorganise my office on the weekend to fit them in! Happy coloring x
Just purchased on Amazon.Jp.
Thanks for showing this book!
Hope you love it! It’s such a cute book! Happy coloring x