Diamond (Realiiu3k9)

Review Details

The client provided a page by page script with general poses and a basic flow between them as well as all the dialog. The artist handled panel layout, flow, and camera direction with some minor feedback from client.

Note: I’ll be using ‘Realiiu’ interchangeably with Realiiu3k9 for flow and brevity.
Note: This doujin is read from left to right instead of the more traditional right to left.

General Impressions

I was first interested in commissioning Realiiu after seeing previous art of theirs and found their dynamic scenes and clean line work a great combination. Not only does this style come through clear, but Realiiu also tackled some interesting problems along the way in bringing Diamond into the 2D world.

For those of you familiar with Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous), you’ll know it as a somewhat amazing outlier to 3D-CG anime. It has fluid 3D animation seamlessly integrated with more traditional 2D animation for closeups and other detailed aspects of the characters. What’s interesting is that given this medium, the anime was able to do some creative work with the character’s hair and lighting to better reflect their gemstone makeup. Translating this style to 2D is a tricky endeavor, and while there is indeed the original manga as reference, I found Realiiu’s interpretation really well done, even compared to the original art [Ex. 01]. But more on this later.

Another fascinating aspect to this doujin is Realiiu’s use of space; specifically page space. You’ll quickly notice that the first couple of pages use less than the full space allowed by the page. As the story transitions into the more spicy content, the panels begin to take up more of the page and the drawings start to bleed outside the panels more often. This plays into how Realiiu arranges their pages based on the content of the doujin. I found that they will tend to stick to the panels and keep things somewhat compact on a page when there’s more story content. Then, when the story opens up into the more sexual content, so do the panels and use of page space. I found this to be an interesting quirk, and I wonder if this kind of style persists through their other works, or if the way the story was presented prompted this kind of page design.

One last thing I wanted to mention before continuing is the background art. I didn’t specify a time of day for the story and just provided some simple reference images of the location, but I found that Realiiu really did a good job representing the space of this unique world. The use of deep blacks for the outside contrasting with the characters’ bright silhouettes in the foreground make for a nice artistic aesthetic as well as a somewhat more enhanced feeling of privacy and intimacy. It’s like these characters are interacting during the calm of a deep night where they are together and the world fades away while they only focus on each other [Ex. 02].

Characters

Looking at Diamond’s design, it’s clear that Realiiu did a great job replicating the design from the source material. Her slim physique and slightly lanky limbs feel appropriately proportioned compared to the anime and original manga. More impressive though, is the facial features and hair. Diamond’s face is well drawn and borrows little details that help distinguish Houseki no Kuni characters from others. For instance, her eyelashes\upper eye lid feature that same, slightly thicker appearance unique for these gemstone characters. Similarly, those lashes tend to extend out from the eye shape giving that extra length to the eyes that really stands out [Ex. 03].

I touched on this earlier, but I must once again compliment the hair design. The transition from 3D to 2D isn’t always easy, and when it comes to gemstones that refract light all over the environment, conveying that visual can be difficult. Realiiu really did a great job giving the hair a certain shiny quality to it that really stands out. The repeated bands of dark and bright reflections showcase the quality of the hair quite well and really adds to the overall unique quality of the character.

Touching once more on Diamond’s overall design, I find that Realiiu did a good job replicating Diamond’s body shape and overall proportions. Now, given who she is and how the characters are represented in the source material, some small liberties were taken, mainly with the breast size, but I think this is a good change that doesn’t distract from the original character design. And looking at Realiiu’s final design, I’d say they definitely nailed a good sense of natural curves that really accentuate the character’s silhouette and gives her a natural elegance [Ex. 04].

As for Sensei, his design also stays rather true to the source material. While this bald monk’s design is relatively simplistic, Realiiu does a good job giving him a nude body for which there were no references. In most panels his design is well represented, but sometimes I do notice that his face feels a little bit more feminine than his original design.

Flow & Camera

As I’ve already mentioned, this doujin tends to use rectangular panel designs with some pages being more condensed than other. This can sometimes feel a little simplistic or less dynamic, but I find the flow to be uninterrupted by this design. And when the story transitions to more not-safe-for-work content, characters tend to steal the focus and bleed outside panels for a more dynamic and exciting flow.

As for the content inside the panels, I find that Realiiu does a good job giving each panel a good composition and a well chosen camera angle. Earlier in the story, while the scenario is being established, we are treated to some dynamic camera angles as Diamond contemplates her feelings [Ex. 05]. I think these panels really give some visual variety to the doujin while the dialog unfolds and it strikes a good balance of visual interest to character action. Since these scenes are mostly focused on dialog, maintaining visual interest here rather than just giving some low effort panels in order to get through the dialog is greatly appreciated.

When the story moves on to more spicy content, things continues to flow quite well with only one or two strange transitions, the most noticeable one being the transition from pages 9 to 10. This transition has a change in pose that can be a little hard to follow given the previous pages’ flow of action, but it’s not too jarring as to completely break the feel of the story.

Looking at how the rest of the sexual content flows, I’m happy to say that once again the poses and camera are well executed. I did specify some preferences in the script, and the artist did a great job providing their own style while supplying various views of the action that really follow along the preferences given. The majority of camera angles do favor a frontal view of the characters, once again as slightly motivated by the script details, where the breasts and sometimes vagina are in clear view. While this may sound a little too similar between pages, I found the choice in camera angles gives the panels enough visual variety as to avoid most readers noticing. That said, some readers who are looking for more angles that favor the butt or back will be a little disappointed, but you can safely direct that disappointment at myself for detailing some general camera and pose preferences to the artist at the start of the project.

One other thing I wanted to mention again is Realiiu’s page balance. Once sex begins I find that each page tends to have one or two panels of interest that really stand out, like a full body shot that bleeds out of the panel. Then there’s two or three supplementary smaller panels that give extra details. This pattern, along with the panel placement tends to make each page have one major element that draws the eye before you begin to continue the story. Some may find this a little distracting, but I found that it gave each page a unique emphasis that was kind of cool.

Sexual Content

This story is a total of 15 pages long with three pages contributing to foreplay and seven being full copulation. The foreplay consists of just kissing and fingering, and while some may feel like this section is a little rushed, the quality is worth it. As a note, the artist was following along with the script, so if this section feels rushed to you, it’s on me, the script writer for that problem. Anyway, it’s within these three pages that we get some of the best examples of this artist’s ability to draw figures.

On page 5, where the two characters share their first kiss, we are treated to a well drawn panel that shows the two in a rather dynamic pose that really gives an evocative introduction to foreplay. The poses of the characters and flow of your eye through the panel really makes for a tantalizing image without the need for any explicit material [Ex. 06].

On the following page, we are then treated to a full height image of Diamond fully exposed [Ex. 07]. This is a good example of Realiiu’s figure drawing ability and I wanted to specifically mention this pose because I think it shows a good example of the higher-end of what this artist can do. With that in mind though, throughout the rest of the doujin, as the characters indulge in sex, the poses can vary in stiffness. That is to say, depending on the difficulty and dynamic nature of a pose/panel the characters can sometimes feel a little more stiff. This isn’t a big deal, since the overall quality of the poses is still quite good and it usually manifests as just a little weirdness where the characters feel like they are lacking just a tiny bit of motion, or have some strangeness to their proportions. This is usually seen in the characters' arms/legs being a little stretched or misproportioned, and it is an area that I think this artist is growing, but the effect is not usually not enough to distract from the enjoyment of the poses.

Now to look deeper into the actual sex featured in this story. The characters move through a couple of different positions, including missionary, standing from behind, or standing doggy, and a tiny bit of a side position. The choice of camera and pose are usually quite good and the rendering of the characters’ privates are both well done. Diamond’s vagina and Sensei’s penis aren’t overly complicated, and are a couple of closeup panels that show the details a little more, but overall they compliment the characters well enough.

Diamond’s expressions are all well drawn with a healthy dose of blushing and reactionary expressions that toggle between closed eyes and semi-open eyes that convey both lust and hesitance as she doesn’t know yet how to deal with her emotions and stimulation that’s she’s feeling for the first time. This connects well with the action on the page and together they bring a satisfying evocativeness to each page [Ex. 08].

The backgrounds after sex begins are usually somewhat simple so they don’t distract from the main action, but they still pop up enough, and incorporate enough of the darkness I mentioned earlier to give the whole story that feeling of intimacy and aloneness. In a bit of contrast to this, I want to mention the page balance once more, since as the story continues you may notice a lot of white space on various pages. The use of one or two panels of interest with smaller panels to supplement tend to give the pages some places of just empty white space. I can understand if this comes across as somewhat jarring, but I think this helps lean into the themes I mentioned in the beginning around the aloneness that comes with the pitch darkness that represents the outside. It may seem strange that both a black darkness and white void evoke the same feeling in me, but in the end they both achieve something similar; a feeling of emptiness where only these two characters exist in the world for this moment. While I have a feeling this may not have been completely intentional, I do like how it ended up feeling within the context of this story.

Now that I’ve sufficiently deviated from the section topic, let’s actually finish looking at the sexual content. As I briefly mentioned, there are a couple of different positions the characters move between, and I think that the poses for each fo these positions are well chosen, but I want to specifically mention the standing behind position from page 11 [Ex. 09]. I found this panel to be especially evocative with the character’s curves in full display along with a good imitation of motion with appropriate speed lines and hair movement followed up with a great facial expression to seal the deal.

As the story reaches its climax, I find page 13 to be a little awkwardly paced in the transition to page 14, but that’s a small problem since when you enter page 14 you’re treated to a great full page drawing for the climax of the doujin. The final climax is a full, front view drawing in missionary position with an x-ray visual in the background and a closeup facial expression taking the remainder of the page’s space.

The final page shows a little post-climax result while providing a tiny bit of open-ended story resolution with the characters deciding that they want to continue. It may be a quick tie-up for the story, but I think that it’s best not to leave a story hanging on just the final climax, and in the end it seems like a cute way to end the story for now.

Final Thoughts

I think Realiiu was able to deliver a well produced and stylish doujin that not only matched the script perfectly, but also contained the artist's unique flavor. They have a good eye for where to place the camera and how the characters should be posed within that camera. And while there may a few instances where the characters feel just a little stiff, the overall quality is clearly present and I feel that this artist is only going to grow. I look forward to seeing anything else they decide to work on.