Kiyohiko Azuma is the artist, and his most successful work is ‘Azumanga Daioh’; a slice-of-life manga that follows the daily lives of seven mismatched friends through three years of high school in suburban Tokyo. It was a massive hit beginning 14 years ago as an Anime series.

I love it, not only because it is beautifully drawn but it is almost completely realistic. I’d grown sick of Magical Girls and giant mecha and the sexual fantasies of an industry almost entirely dominated by men (Miyazaki and Kon being notable exceptions). Azumanga was refreshingly different.

And because I love it I began doing ‘fan-art’, following every whim I had (like inserting Azu-san’s characters into Da Vinci’s ‘Last Supper’). Then came the cards.

Playing cards have always intrigued me by their curious rotatable symmetry, and I wanted to achieve it too. But the traditional cards were too stylised, and too restrictive. I wanted to push at the envelope. Each of my cards is an experiment, and you’ll see that. Asides from stretching the possibilites of symmetry, each card expresses something of the character, a specific scene, or both.

DISCLAIMER: I’m no great artist (despite my child-prodigy phase), and these images have made use of character studies, screen-shots, and promotional artwork of Kiyohiko Azuma himself. Especially the faces. He is the composer; I just did the arrangement. They are intended as a homage.

The link will take to to the full series.

More info: lookafar.deviantart.com

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