Great for Artists who already know how to draw.... 
By A1ZQQU328HLQDR on 2000-10-06
I wouldn't recommend it as a starting point for beginners, though. This book would be very inspirational to a beginner, but it doesn't give a very good foundation on how they make the lovely pictures in the book.To those of us who've been at it for a while, though, it's a wonderful book, full of insight, and funny Japanese quirks, like 7 pages on how to draw panties... Prudish parents, beware, it does get pretty involved on drawing the "girly" parts of the girls... This is a great book, looks like they don't keep it in good enough circulation, though!
This book is most definantly not worth a dime. 
By A2OZ40EKT8N4SW on 2005-08-16
I wrote a review for this, but someone must have reported it because I bashed this book bad. I tell you this, what you see on the cover is what you get and is not what you get. Let me explain.
The cover illustrates ladies in lingerie and that show off there big breast and their nipples through the bras. That is what the whole book is about, 127 pages of poorly drawn half naked anime girls. It doesn't really show you anything important to draw. For example, how to draw the eyes so they correspond with the personality. Or how they should dress, how to draw their hair.
In the book they have 63 pages on how to draw the breast, crotch, and buttocks. 63 PAGES! That's half the book. I mean seriously, Hikaru Hayashi did not have to go into that much detail. Not that the framework isn't important, but the book "How to Draw Manga: Bodies & Anatomy" is more appropriate.
This book was absolutely no help in any way for me. If you want to know what was helpful to me in drawing the female characters, was this books:
-How to Draw Manga: Bodies & Anatomy
-How to Draw Manga: Costume Encyclopedia
-More How To Draw Manga Volume 4: Mastering Bishoujo Characters
I hope this has been a helpful review and lets hope this time it isn't reported.
Mature theme but great instruction
By AOM6Y2A4J0WOG on 2005-05-27
Like other reviews say, this is an intermediate or advanced book and not for a beginner. But if you can draw what you see fairly well, your skill for drawing manga girls will greatly increase after parsing through this great material. I broke out the "newsprint" pad, pencil set and sharpener, and drew along with every picture in this book over a 15 or so day period. And my skills went way up - I'm now very comfortable creating a manga girl from scratch. Highly recommended, although not the best book to carry around because of the mature theme.
Great Reference Material
By on 2000-03-27
This book is intended for those who want to refine their manga skills, specially those making a transition from a more realistic anatomy to a cartoony style. Even if it has some little translation problems, it gives very good reference and pointers for depicting a simplified female form in an alluring way, with lots of subtle little tricks to convey character (limb positioning, body types, facial expressions, proportions, etc). As far as the manga style fundamentals, you may want to consider getting "How to Draw Manga", from the same publisher... let's just hope they translate the other books in the series.
Everything you'll need all in one!
By A3B3MLUE8DRLGM on 2005-12-31
This book was basically about drawing the female's face, body, and clothing, there are some nudes in this book:
Chapter 1-Bishoujo Character Drawing Theory
The topics are: Grasping the key traits of bishoujo characters, Drawing faces, Jawbones-outlines and facial direction, Eyes and irises, Eye types, Eyelashes and eyebrows/how to draw eyes, Managing various pupils/shutting the eyes, Bishoujo eye types, standard eyed girls/droopy eyed girls/up-turned eyed girls, Changing the shape of the eyes with angles, Ears, nose and mouths, Heads and hair, Head depths/hairlines and foreheads/tying the hair back, Drawing cute characters making faces.
Chapter 2-Bishoujo Bodies
The topics: Balancing heads and bodies, Drawing waists/drawing slender bodies/shoulder breadth and figures, Flowing bodylines, Bodyline-front view/back lines/side lines-from the armpits to the side, Bending bodies-visually directing cuteness, Drawing breasts, Continuous movement and girls, High and low angles.
Chapter 3-Situations and Techniques of Expression
The topics: Changing clothes, Taking off jackets, blouses and skirts/putting on t-shirts and jeans, Yukata: japanese dressing gowns, Visual direction with dressing gowns-showing some skin, Taking off clothing before a bath, Bathtub and shower scenes, Soaking in bathtubs/visually directing foam and steam, taking showers/water flowing down the body, Wrapping towels, Around the head/around the body, Working with lingerie, Simple Lingerie/extravagent lingerie, Dressing for bed, Pajamas and negligee/t-shirts, Visual direction effects using sheets, Wrapping characters in sheets/sheets and sleeping poses, Using tones to express suntans.
Chapter 4-Everyday Life Bishoujo
The Topics:Girls with glasses, Girls with their hair in a plait, Hairbands, tiaras and ribbons, Hairbands and tiaras/ribbon principles, Hats and caps, Various Caps/sun shielding hats/ten gallon hats, Girls in school uniforms, Maids, Bunny girls, Nurses, Maidens in the service of shinto shrines, Young misses-drawing gorgeous curly hair.
Chapter 5-Out-of-This-World Bishoujo
The Topics: Cat eared lasses, Girls in fur, Drawing ears and tails, Girls with wings, Bird wing principles/wings-front and back/folding the wings, Mermaids, Fairies, Pointed ears/pointed ears and thier appearance/fairy wings, Hoods and Cloaks, Powered suits, Bionic cybog girls, Drawing tiny tot characters,Various tiny tot characters.
Chapter 6-Learn from the Masters
This shows professional artist drawings, they are:
BISHOUJO by Eimu Mizuki
ICE FAIRY by Tomoko Taniguchi
CONTRAST by Kaoru Kawakata
DOUBLE WAITRESS by Kouichi Kusano
ELF MOMENT (ERUFU NO TOKI) by Mako Sakura
FEMALE STUDENT (JOGAKUSEI) by Ganmma Suzuki
This is good for advanced beginner to intermediate and a good reference for professionals too. I recommend this book and guarentee that you will LOVE it! ^.^
~kay~
- Great for learning figures and proportions
By AVX3MF9ZRZD0F on 2000-03-23
This book is excellent for learning to draw to female figures for manga that isn't highly stylistic. It does assume that the reader knows basic rules for drawing faces and other parts, what equipment is used, and has access to tools commonly found only in Japan (like screentones). There were a few publishing errors made when flipping the book over to read left to right, but they are minor and easily caught. Overall, this is a great book for the developing manga artist who already has some practice. I hope the book on drawing young boys is as helpful (if I can ever find it).
- Awful at best
By A324S69XH2CPCL on 2005-12-17
This book did not help me at all. Breasts, buttocks, crotch, and tastless panty shots took up the majority of the book, though I found a few helpful hints. I guess guess the "techniques for drawing female characters" was different from my expectations. The male character book wasn't anything like this.
- Very good, though perhaps not the place to start
By A2IR2YMZ4ZD3K6 on 2000-02-18
This book is very well done and is mostly example drawings and diagrams; however, it assumes you already know about rudimentary drawing techniques and things like screen tones. Therefore, the best place to start for manga drawing would be with How To Draw Manga vol. 1 and get this book later on (indeed, if the order of books shown on the sleeve is correct, this book would be vol. 4).
- Great if you want some cheap soft porn
By A1DFW2X83T2W8W on 2004-09-19
My son bought this book because he is interested in drawing. I guess I should have read the book before allowing my teenager to have it, but I didn't know Amazon sold soft porn. Lots of crotch shots and "the female breast at rest, and jiggling." There was little if anything on actually how TO DRAW, just good pics to look at for a (really) cheap thrill.
- Poor Illustrations
By A2N8JZPRYJAQ4O on 2006-03-19
As other reviewers noted the book is abound with upper body nudity and some rather indecent panty shots (Which are made all the more hilarious by little warnings "Be careful not to draw the crotch in too much detail. Otherwise the affect is obscene" they should have told the illustrators that. Despite pages on n the jiggling of the breast drawing the female face and portraying different female characters is almost non-existent. Add into that the poor illustrations and the affect is a pure waste of money. The illustrations were rather crude and unrefined and not something you want to aspire to.
If you really want to draw female characters check out Volume 2 of "more How to Draw Manga" by go office. Although, the title is officially penning characters there's a lot about female body types and the art is consistently top notch. It also briefly talks about women's eyes, a very important feature of any manga character.
Just save your money and don't bother with this title.
- Shamefull!!!
By on 2005-12-21
All this book is about is nudity, sexy pictures and all that stuff! Why can't they make a how to draw manga females without all the porn? It's as if they think that is what you are going to want to draw. Naked girls! Come on, this is a piontless porn book. I hope you find this review helpful, so do not waste your money and do not get this for young children!
- what in the...?
By A71BR2DMQD281 on 2006-02-03
this book is full of kiddy porn, for some dirty old men, but other then that I didn't learn any thing, save your$.
- Not for beginners
By A1TN7G3QAST2VY on 2004-08-05
I picked up this book at a comic shop and haven't been disappointed. This book is not for those just getting into drawing manga however. I've read there are earlier volumes in this series that cover the basics so I recommend getting those first. One should also be warned that there is a fair amount of nudity and the female body parts are covered in detail, though nothing that would warrant an adults only rating. If you've read the earlier books in the How to Draw Manga series or have decent experience drawing in general this book will make a good addition to any interested in manga art.
- money is better spent on more serious references
By ALNIZUEWQIB1 on 2005-06-27
Unfortunately, I bought this with a large chunk of my savings at an anime-con when I was in high school, and frankly this book is a waste.
If you're serious about learning anatomy and proportions, get a book about the anatomy of the human body. Draw the human body from reference, then draw it some more from memory. Once you've learned the rules, THEN you can bend them to suit whatever your style may be. The artist who does most of the drawings in this book could be called many things, but certainly not a master of the female form.
At best there are a few lines where he throws out his opinion about how he thinks a boob should look, or what a cartoon's proportions should be, but those are no more than opinions (which aren't shared by many).
If you are considering buying this book b/c you know there are unclothed female figures inside, there are better sources for that which you don't have to pay for on the internet... :P
If you want to learn more on how to draw comics and/or or the female figure, this book does not belong on your reference shelf.
- A good reference for intermediate artists
By AZZ3VVEYTKGMT on 2000-03-14
This book is helpful if you want to improve your manga-style female figures, but is not a good place to start to learn basics about drawing or manga-style techniques. As another reviewer suggested, the first book in this series is the best to start with. Also, although this book spends a great deal of time on in-depth coverage of drawing the body, it doesn't cover drawing faces, eyes, and hair nearly enough. Even with this problems, I still recommend this book as a great help to improve and refine manga-style figure proportions.
- It's good for those that know how to draw.
By ASCSTPFPG01O2 on 2004-01-19
I give this book 4 stars because the tutorials are good,but they arent really the best for beginners. I recommend this book to any manga artist. This book has some nudity in it,but it's censored to keep it appropriate for teen artists.
- Not bad, good ref
By on 2004-02-14
though it may say how to draw, it doesn't actually show you step by step how to draw...well...female characters. it really goes over how to draw poportions so the character doesn't look unbalanced, and how to draw clothing properly on the body so it looks mroe realistic instead of some wacked out thing. i'm 14, and i've already done alot of manga and anime drawing, so i'm well on my way. from what i got, this book requires you to already have the basic knowledge of body poportions, facial, hair and such. it goes more in depth about the most exaggerated features (i'm sure you know what i'm talking about if you've seen some manga girls)^_^;; it talks about: the characteristics, drawing the parts of teh body, how to differentiate between age (child-teen-adult), what to simplify etc. to name some. However, if you need help with body poportions on female characters, and you already have basic knowledge, this book is a must, or at the very least, a reference for any trouble shooting. hope that helps ^_^
- Female Anatomy in Detail
By A3NPLA19LD5E23 on 2004-11-22
This book is wonderful for learning the anatomical side of females and briefly shows some daily actions. More specifically, it covers typical shapes of breasts, how they move when the body is at rest, laying, standing, or hunched over; the butt, crotch, legs, neck, nails, eyes, mouth, ears, hair, and different body types. Hayashi also has a section of clothing for women covering underwear, bra, regulation swimsuit, gym attire, and the like.
Like any good book in anatomy, there is nudity present in this book. Some may be offended by the areas it covers such as the breast and how they move at different positions or views of the butt and crotch areas but you can't draw a realistic image if you are not made aware of information such as these. Personally, I'd rather look at a line drawing than view the real thing at one of the figure drawing classes with real-live models.
I would recommend you pick this up if you want to know the in's and out's of the female anatomy and once you've mastered it, this book will serve as an excellent reference.
- Neutral
By on 2005-09-02
Well, don't expect too much from this book. I don't really reccommend this book. The first part has nudity all over the place. Really. Even in other parts of the books which teaches you how to draw things OTHER than body parts, it also includes nudity. I have many examples, but only 2 will be said: When they teach to draw the neck and water drops/sweat. So if you want to draw females, head over to pretty gals (great book) this one does not teach you to draw female characters but they teach you how to draw naked girls. Only a small part of it doesnt, and mostly its "learn from the pros" which the author of this book did not draw the images in their, but got from other artists. So, as a final saying, do not buy this book, dont waste your time and money.
- Great book for drawing anime...however
By A25SM24HUXZAJN on 2000-03-11
This book is great as a startup point of drawing the female body and the structures in manga form. The book has good, understandable instructions, and it provides good diagrams of the female body that helps along the way to learn how to draw. However, there is just one aspect of what I think the book is missing. The book doesn't teach you how about screen tone or shading the body enough. It does, though, but not well enough in detail to the whole figure. Mainly, I find this book useful for drawing simple pictures and sketches of manga girls. But despite in all of this (overall), this is an outstanding book that will help the reader who is interested in drawing girls.
- good book for people who have experience on drawing manga
By on 2003-12-31
this book is great even if it does have nudity but theres a purpose for it so the artist can see how the clothes fit on your female character it shows the different angles of different views you can draw your character there are a good amount of poses. and how to do eyes, legs of different lengths and size, hands, feet and for those who like to draw there characters in water it explains how the water drops flow on the body. So in other words this book is good.it doesn't earn its fifth cause there are some poses half done meaning they don't show the head and face so if you are trying to draw that pose you have to assume how the heads shape is suppose to be buy the book anyways because it has help me a lot so it could do some good for you ^-^
- manga culture and the details of it all...
By A21FRPLBAHN66J on 2005-01-07
I see that a lot of the problems people have with the content of this series is really a clash of cultures than anything else. The ideal of politically correctness is fundamentally an American concept, at least in the sense that we know it. Just keep an open mind, and remember that the western mind-set is not the only way of looking at the world.
Now, with that said... looking at the book for what it is. A book on how to draw the female form, which it does very well. And yes, some of the details can be quite explict, but it is the details that help one as an artist. The book pretty much covers everything one needs to concider for drawing the female form, the only thing it may have left out was older women, probabaly in a different book. Its a must have for the ispiring Bishoujo artist as a good reference tool, or anyone that has trouble drawing women. So far this is the most useful book I have, out of four others in the series.
Final note, most of the "How to" manga books are not step by step books. Rather they have a picture presented, and you must practice what you see until you get it right. This frustrates the people that want a book that tells you, "draw this line, now draw this line." Truthfully the way these books make you work at it, will help you in the long run, rather than the hold-your-hand method. If you're serious about manga, get it.
- Great female ref book
By A2FC1FD3Y4ZU17 on 2006-12-19
I don't care what other people are saying about this book. I think this book is great for those who are struggling with the female body. This book gives you detail on how to draw a woman's figure correctly, their breats, their lips, and eyes. Hikaru Hayashi also put in a small section of how to draw the hair with pony tail holders, and a small section of girls in their sailor uniforms, P.E. uniforms, and how to put on/ get out of clothing. I think this is a great book for enhancing your characters presence. I would definately recommend this book for those trying to start out with improving their skills. I do not recommend this book for kids, or for those who are offended by nudity. This book is Not kiddy porn at all. I saw someone put that on their description about this book, and they are so very wrong. Nothing in this book has anything of the sort, so please don't listen to people like that. They will give you the wrong impression about a good helpful book like this one.
- Magnifique'!
By on 2000-02-06
It's a great book on drawing the female anime physique and all! Number 1! Great instructions, great illustrations!
- Far from the Best
By A24PX9ET8ED7MK on 2004-07-16
I got this book when i got into drawing and was disgusted to find it did'nt really help me at all. I only gave it two stars because it gives you a few examples to look at if you really need them. and if your gonna draw something more for an ADULT kind of cartoon. There was more on how to draw breasts in diffrent postions and how it'd look with diffrent hands holding it then how to draw legs and arms. combined. it's alright if your deperate. but don't waiste your money otherwise.
- Incredible. I use it all the time.
By A3EIDHCRJBO988 on 2004-07-29
This book is one of the best books I've found for drawing manga; I've always had trouble drawing females characters, despite the many other manga technique books I've read. This one finally helped me learn to draw females much more efficiently, and I've already noticed a great change in my female drawing of now and before. I use this for both drawing pictures and many fighting game sprites/animations.
- Excellent Book!
By A2LALX01D0PPA on 2007-04-15
This book was helpful and provided in-depth info about the female form. It covers drawing ears, the hips, chest, eyes, as well as a variety of other featured acquitted with drawing girls. For those who bought this book and complained about the nudity... dont! Any true artist undserstands that the human body is just another part of their work. Ignoring the mature theme, this book was resourceful and I learned a great deal! I recommend it for beginner and intermediate artists alike.
- Not to be immature, but, ew
By on 2007-05-26
This book does have *some* useful information, but it is mostly scantily clad or nude women in sexual positions. The only part that I found relatively interesting was the section on different clothing textures. I would *not* recommend this book to anyone that wants to learn realistic anatomy or poses.
- Perfect for perfecting female characters
By A2FLJCJ3SW0TUY on 2007-08-09
This is the book if your having trouble with females characters or looking to improve it some more.
All of the other people complaining about nudity should just stfu. If they're in clothing how do you get the details you really need to improve your drawings. You have to be mature enough to know that it's art, not porn. There's a difference. It's the human body for god's sake...you have one don't you? Everyone is a human so why the hell are you complaining about a human body o.O If you don't want to "perfect" your females characters look at some other crap, but if your really willing, why care about the nude females. You are here to draw and not just flip through it to get horny and jack/jill off.
Mkay...onto the book xD
What others called "sexual positions" are simply positions that you use every day. Bending over, laying on the bed, sitting down, standing, and yes, some people even crawl to reach for things under their desk. Chill out about that. This book pretty much covers everything, the face which I needed help on badly. The upper body, arms, lower body, stomach and etc. I had trouble with fingers and this somewhat even briefly covered that. This is a truly great book by an amazing author(s)
- they did great on this one
By on 2005-06-28
If you like drawing manga or need some help drawing females, this book is for you then. Don't let the cover scare you away from it. It really does a good job on teaching the basics of female drawing. Not for beginners though, this asumed for at least some expeirence with drawing manga. It does have some mild nudity, at least it doesn't show any of the details. Plus thats in the anatomy section.overall it's a great htdm book.
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