Kamen Rider Kiva - Character Visual Guides 1-3 and Official Photo Book

Kamen Rider Kiva managed to put out a lot of character books during its run on television, probably due to the fact that it was quite the ikemen paradise.  The series was filled with beautiful and handsome men, to which female fans couldn't really object against.  Kiva is one of my personal favorite Kamen Rider series, not because the plot was spectacular (it wasn't), but because I fell in love with all the handsome men!  I believe that's what this collection of photo books was there for: to appeal to the female demographic that was watching to catch a glimpse of all the hot, young men.  So here are the books:

 Prelude
The first of the photo books, Prelude has two chapters.  The first chapter is beautiful photos of all the males in the series: Wataru, Otoya, Nago, Jiro, Kengo, Riki, and Ramon.  At the end of the chapter are purple and black pages that serve as an episode guide up to episode 16.  Chapter 2 has group shots, behind the scenes images, and the back has black and white interview pages.  At the front of the book is a poster, one side featuring Wataru and the violin, Bloody Rose; the other side has Nago and Otoya.  All in all, this book is gorgeous and is one of my favorites of the four photo books.

 

Official Photo Book
The Official Photo Book is the only photo book and guide that doesn't have any black and white pages, and unlike the other books, it features only Seto Koji, Takeda Kouhei, and Kato Keisuke.  For the most part, this book features high quality screen captures of scenes from the Kiva movie, with very little text getting in the way of the beautiful shots.  At the middle of the book is a time line for people to understand where in Kiva's continuity the movie happens, and after that are shots of the actors being themselves.  Model shots, I suppose would be the best way to describe the pictures in the back.  There are a few interviews, but mostly this book is for those who just want to stare at the pretty boys.  I've found this book useful for making graphics, as many of the images are very clean and makes it easier for me to edit the images for icons or whatever.  If you like Seto koji, Takeda Kohei, or Kato Keisuke, this book is definitely for you! 

Concerto
The second of the Character Visual Guides, Concerto has always bothered me.  Like the first Visual Guide, Concerto has interviews and beautiful shots of the boys being their beautiful selves, but my only problem with this book is how it spends most of its time promoting the movie.  There are pages filled with nothing but screen shots from the movie, and it gets a little annoying after a while.  This isn't to say that it's not as lovely as the other books, but I feel this book would have been more effective without the need to shove the movie down the reader's throat.  A lot of my favorite shots are from this book, however, which gives it some merit.  Otoya giving Wataru a piggy-back ride and Kengo thrusting his admiration upon a not-so-impressed Nago always make my day brighter!  The episode guide at the back of the book gets you up to episode 24 and there are many nice black and white photos as well.

 Celebrate
The final visual guide, Celebrate, is probably my favorite of the photo books.  It doesn't have a lot of gorgeous photos or promos of anything, but you can tell that the cast had a great time making this book together.  The majority of this book is group and pair photos, getting everyone to sit down (or not, in many cases) and have some fun as production wraps up.  Like always, there's an episode guide in the back, but there are also great interviews and 20 questions with the main cast and a lot of the black and white photos I sort of wish were in color.  If you're looking for seriousness in this book, you're not going to find it.  You take off the dust cover and the book is plastered in photos of everyone being dorky; it's completely apparent that this book is about having one last hurrah before the series ends.  This is definitely a good book for people who enjoyed Kiva.

To wrap this up, I love all my Kiva books.  Every single one of them has something unique about them and I simply adore them.  I'm really glad that I managed to find them, and just taking a look at how their covers are beginning to become worn just shows that I do look at them regularly.  Below are download links to some of the scans I did from Concerto and Celebrate should anyone want them.

Kamen Rider Kiva Character Visual Guide 2 Concerto

Kamen Rider Kiva Character Visual Guide 3 Celebrate