Pan-Exotica

by Takato Yamanoto
published by: Kawade Shobo Shinsha
ISBN4-309-90473-4

Even though they say that you should never judge a book by its cover, I have always had a weakness for beautifully made books.  This one was a particularly lovely example.  It comes in a beige sleeve with a cutout window, and the book itself is bond in a nubby gray silk, with the title embossed .  Only the facing pages contain images, so leaving through the book is like leafing through a folio of prints. It is as though simply by holding the book and flipping through its pages you are absorbing some of the decadence and strangeness of the art.

Beside that I can not say much about the author himself.  From the back page we learn that the artist, Takato Yamanoto, is an illustrator of Boy's Love, fantasy, romance and erotic novels.