Too Many Penguins!

Title: TV Animation Inazuma Eleven All Players Meikan (Tento Mushi Comics Special)
TV Animation Inazuma Eleven All Players Directory
TV ANIMATION イナズマイレブン[全選手名鑑] (てんとう虫コミックススペシャル)
Release Date: June 28, 2010
Publisher: Shogakukan
ISBN: 9784091410580
Size: 6.8 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
Pages: 144
Color: Full color (except back index)
Binding: Softcover with softgloss coversheet
Price: ￥571 (before tax if applicable)
Where to purchase:
CDJapan

Summary/Description:
This book covers anime episodes 1-67.
Table of Contents:
1. Graffiti (illustrations)
2. Complete Character Roster
3. Complete Hissatsu Technique Index
4. Complete Match Details
5. Complete Uniform Catalogue
6. Feature on ep 68+ characters (Height Comparison Charts)

Personal ratings:
Physical Book/Paper quality: 9/10. The pages are much studier than the typical tankouban you would get for shounen manga but are still rather transparent when held up against a light. Although honestly for the price, it’s not much to complain about.
Art Content: 9/10. It’s chock full of color illustrations of just about every character covered in the eps listed. My only (minor) complaints would be the small size of many of the images + a very specific selection of images used. There’s just so much official lineart available but they never offer it all.
Text Content: 10/10. Furigana included. A fanfic/doujinshi writer trying to backtrack on official material but not wanting to recheck through the actual episodes would find this series of books WONDERFUL. It details every match played in the anime, which hissatsu were used in which match, what individual players DID in the matches… and more.
Overall: 9.5/10. For the inexpensive price, it’s definitely my top recommendation for those with the lightest of wallets wanting Inazuma Eleven books. And even if you can afford the more expensive ones, this is an excellent addition and source in the collection.
Sample of Character pages:

Sample of Match Details:

Sample of Hissatsu Index:

Sample height chart comparison:

Title: Inazuma Eleven All Players Meikan 2 (Corocoro Comics Special)
Inazuma Eleven All Players Directory 2 (Corocoro Comics Special)
TV ANIMATION イナズマイレブン[全選手名鑑] 2 <#68-99>
Release Date: November 26, 2010
Publisher: Shogakukan
ISBN: 9784091412096
Size: 6.8 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
Pages: 144
Color: Full color (except back index)
Binding: Softcover with softgloss coversheet
Price: ￥571 (before tax if applicable)
Where to purchase:
CDJapan

Summary/Description:
This book covers anime episodes 68-99.
Table of Contents:
1. Graffiti (illustrations)
2. Complete Character Roster
3. Complete Hissatsu Technique/Tactics Index
4. Complete Match Details
5. Complete Uniform Catalogue
6. Height Comparison Charts of National Players

Personal ratings:
Physical Book/Paper quality: 9/10
Art Content: 9/10
Text Content: 10/10
Overall: 9.5/10. All comments are essentially the same as the first book, except this book covers episodes 68-99 respectively.

Title: TV Animation Inazuma Eleven All Players Meikan 3 (Tento Mushi Comics Special)
TV Animation Inazuma Eleven All Players Directory 3
Release Date: June 28, 2011
Publisher: Shogakukan
ISBN: 9784091413130
Size: 6.8 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
Pages: 144
Color: Full color (except back index)
Binding: Softcover with softgloss coversheet
Price: ￥571 (before tax if applicable)
Where to purchase:
CDJapan

Summary/Description:
This book covers anime episodes 100-127.
Table of Contents:
1. Graffiti (illustrations)
2. Complete Character Roster
3. Complete Hissatsu Technique/Tactics Index
4. Complete Match Details
5. Complete Uniform Catalogue
6. Height Comparison Charts of National Players

Title: TV Animation Inazuma Eleven GO All Players Meikan (Tento Mushi Comics Special)
TV Animation Inazuma Eleven GO All Players Directory
Release Date: December 2011
Publisher: Shogakukan
ISBN: 9784091414274
Size: 6.8 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
Pages:
Color: Full color (except back index)
Binding: Softcover with softgloss coversheet
Price: ￥571 (before tax if applicable)
Where to purchase:
CDJapan

Summary/Description:
This book covers GO anime episodes 1-27.
Table of Contents:
1. Graffiti (illustrations)
2. Complete Character and Avatar Roster
3. Complete Hissatsu Technique Index
4. Complete Match Details
5. Complete Uniform Catalogue
6. Complete Scores(?)
7. All Match DATA (?)
8. Height Comparison Charts

Title: TV Animation Inazuma Eleven GO All Players Meikan 2 (Tento Mushi Comics Special)
TV Animation Inazuma Eleven GO All Players Directory 2
Release Date: July 2012
Publisher: Shogakukan
ISBN: 9784091415189
Size: 6.8 x 4.5 x 0.6 inches
Pages:
Color: Full color (except back index)
Binding: Softcover with softgloss coversheet
Price: ￥571 (before tax if applicable)
Where to purchase:
CDJapan

Summary/Description:
This book covers GO anime episodes 28-47, Chrono Stone 1-11

Title: TV Animation Inazuma Eleven Memories
TV ANIMATION イナズマイレブン MEMORIES 2008>2011
Release Date: April 20, 2011
Publisher: Shogakukan
ISBN: 9784091990273
Size: A4
Pages: 128
Color: Full color (some black/white pages)
Binding: Hardcover with softgloss coversheet
Price: ￥2,000 (before tax if applicable)
Where to purchase:
CDJapan

Summary/Description:
An extravagant collection of over 100 colored illustrations for Inazuma Eleven! A hardcover Memorial book crafted with care.
Also contains the register of all the teams and all the player names that appeared in the anime episodes 1-127.
A must-have book for any Inazuma Eleven character fan.

From the publishers:
This is a book to coincide with the airing of the TV anime’s “Graduation Special” on April 20 and 27th. With this graduation album format book in hand, enjoy the show!

Personal ratings:
Physical Book/Paper quality: 10/10. The hardcover binding in the larger A4 size is lovely. I have quite a few artbooks from Japan and this hits about the same paper quality as the rest. If you were really crazy enough to use it as a real yearbook (and have people sign it), the front and back covers are both covered with an extra blank orange sheet without gloss.
Art Content: 10/10. Majority is color, with black/white pages for “school rosters”. Every color page chock full of large, clear illustrations not seen in the anime. There’s a good index of where each piece was featured in the back.
Text Content: N/A. This is where the book got the harshest reviews on Japanese sites like AmazonJP. Although the book is in school yearbook format, there’s pretty much nothing except ART in this book and name listings with the school rosters. It seems a lot of people were expecting texts of reflections or whatnot like some yearbooks have. Never once in the description did it mention it’d have any of this, so I think those people’s disappointment is unwarranted. I believe that all the text reflections were put into the Animage May 2011 issue special instead.
Overall: 9.5/10. For a hardcover, A4 size artbook, this did not disappoint me at all personally. As someone who’s already collected a lot of Inazuma Eleven merchandise, it is a bit less inticing to see many of the images I already have. But as a personal artbook lover, this is still a lovely keeper. It basically filled in a huge gap of my collection at a much more affordable price. Unfortunately, it also does a “nice” job of not filling in any of those gaps 100% by leaving out a few exclusives in each of the features presented in this book, thus still providing a collector the incentive to buy those exclusive collections (except for that Big Card Collection 1 spread, which I think has all of the exclusives, just in smaller print). But I’m not a perfectionist anyway, so I was definitely happy to get what was new for me.

Even among the repeats of images I already had in my own collection, I appreciated finally seeing the full body images for some of them. For example, the Kidou from Character Pos Collection 3 here in full glorious cape:

One of my favorite pages (The first Big Card Collection):

One of the beautiful 2-page spreads:

Includes some pictures from past calendars and DVD covers:

School Rosters (black and white pages):

Some of the back index:

All in all, this book is very ideal in both price and content for any Inazuma Eleven fan who appreciates the artwork. While it doesn’t gain any points in text content, on another end that means it also benefits those who can’t read the Japanese anyway.