Its soon to be 2006, and as such the latest batch of anime and manga calanders have been out in Japan for a while. I’ve just gotten my selection in today after stressfully cutting down my order from seven to four (I really regret dropping the great looking Tsubasa/xxxHolic calander, though).
First up, its the Negima manga calander. Its one of those page-a-day desk calander things (it weighs in at about 400 sheets), and is about half the size of your average US Tokyopop/Del Rey manga. Its mostly art taken straight from the manga, though there is some stuff that I don’t recognise in there, plus a few panels of things like quizes or trivia.
Everyone who counts loves Yue
If nothing else, its at least practical. I wouldn’t buy more than one of these for a given year, but unlike the other calanders I’ve only really bought for the art I might actually get some genuine use out of this, and the use of art is more attractive than you’d think, even if it is greyscale.Still, those who crave a full colour Negima fix are saved by an unlikely source – the animation team!

The animation staff calander is better than you’d probably think. Sure, the character designs aren’t as nice as in the manga, but its big and the art is pretty good. For you money you get six (well, seven including the cover) rather large illustrations of the most popular (in Japan) characters, so whilst it lacks the deadpan awesomeness of Yue you do get Nodoka, Setsuna, Evangeline, Makie, Konoka and Asuna in various states of undress. I’m not so keen on the Konoka illustration, but the others are pretty good.
Korobokkuru!
Honey & Clover. Beautiful. ’nuff said. Well, okay, its another huge colour calander like the Negima one, and once again its six/seven pages. All the art is great – the one pictured above is probably the worst, and thats only because it looks a little plain.Last up is the obvious one…
Fate/Stay Night ^^; More accurately, Fate/Hollow Ataraxia, as its all CG from the game, really. Nice think paper and good print quality, though, and the fact that its on a ring binder thing means you don’t have to tear the pages off and risk damaging the art if you genuinely want to actually use it. Its also rather smaller than the Negima and H&C calanders, so finding somewhere practical to hang it is actually a reality! Aside from the six pages for the coming year, there is a page for 2007 with some cute SD art. Neat-o.