Review: Really? Really! Clear Sheet Collection

Posted On June 5, 2008

In the midsts of my Shuffle! merch buying frenzy some months ago, I came across this “Clear Sheet Collection” over at CDJapan. I noticed that of the fifteen “clear sheets” available, two of them were rare images that I really wanted highres copies of (Kaede in naked apron and Kaede in maid outfit) and a quite a few others were images I liked but didn’t have highres versions of. Though, there was a catch: of the fifteen images available, the most you could get from each set was twelve, so you’d be missing out on three of the images no matter what. But despite that little hang up, I snatched this up without a thought and hoped for the best. After a few weeks, it finally arrived at my doorstep (gogo SAL shipping.)

Turns out my luck wasn’t totally horrible like it always is, and I at least got one of the two rare images I wanted. Alas, Kaede in a maid outfit seems forever out of reach, save for bad Yahoo auction pics. If anyone has that one, I’d love a scan of it. Anyways, on to the review…

This “Clear Sheet Collection” is really just a set of transparent pencil boards with various pieces of Really? Really! promotional art on them. Of the fifteen offered, only five of them are the same old recycled art you’ve seen everywhere, with the other ten being rarer images. So, no matter what kind of batch you get, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get some good stuff.

And what good stuff this is! Aoi Nishimata is in top form here with a bunch of cute Kaede renderings along some hot Primula, Mayumi and Sakura action for good measure. Hiro Suzuhira makes some brief appearances with a few Asa and Ama pics, but is mostly absent from this collection considering she apparently left Navel a while ago due to health issues. If I had to say anything negative about this set (aside from the fact that you miss three of the images >:((( ) is that the transparency thing seems pretty pointless. All it really does is make the art look faded, which isn’t a good thing. However, if you’re like me and tape up pencil boards, these look decent against a white surface. They’re also good to collect in an album of some sort!

I’d recommend these to any serious Shuffle! fan such as myself, but good luck finding them now. CDJapan is out, and I have no idea where else they’d sell these. Your best bet is Yahoo auctions, probably. In fact, I should go there right now and see if anyone is selling the Kaede maid “clear sheet”!

Bonus

As a distinguished member of the interwebs, I’ve decided to scan some of the rare images for my fellow otaku. I’ve uploaded all of these to danbooru (18+), but this blog post has a better scan of Naked Apron Kaede. Get ’em while they’re hot!