The professional debut of CLAMP in 1989 with RG Veda brought a new energy and style to fantasy manga, and the four-member manga collective would go on to reinvigorate and revolutionize nearly every genre. But what has set CLAMP apart from other master storytellers is the consistent beauty and creativity in their visual art. Last year, fans in Japan got a chance to celebrate this aspect of CLAMP with an acclaimed exhibition at the National Art Center in Tokyo. As part of the meticulous process of curating and restoring CLAMP's art for the exhibition, two premium art books were produced: SHIRO and KURO. Now fans worldwide will have a chance to sample the magic of that event with this English edition.

Drawing on not just manga and anime but also a variety of rarities, such as magazine bonuses, a video game, a telephone card, and other official merchandise and communications, CLAMP Official Artbook COLOR SHIRO features art from series including:

Tsubasa, RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-
Cardcaptor Sakura
Chobits
Magic Knight Rayearth
xxxHOLiC
Clover
Angelic Layer
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Tokyo Babylon

…and many more, including a piece created for this art book and the exhibition!

COLOR SHIRO has art by CLAMP. Greg Moore provided the English translation. Published by Kodansha (November 18, 2025). Rated 13+.

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Once upon a time, CLAMP had an exhibition in Japan, and two art books were produced. They weren't available elsewhere, but that's changed: Kodansha and Yen Press are each bringing over one book of CLAMP's artwork, with Kodansha delivering Shiro and Yen Press Kuro. As of this writing, I haven't seen Yen Press' half of the equation, but Kodansha's is more than worth it, featuring artwork from RG Veda through Clear Card and everything in between.

And I do mean everything. Far from being just a visual tour of CLAMP's greatest hits, this includes artwork from the bizarre Miyuki-chan in Wonderland, often-overlooked The One I Love, and pretty much everything in between, including titles like The Legend of Chun Hyang and Man of Many Faces. It's a showcase of their entire career, which means that it's also an object lesson in how their artwork has changed and evolved. From the pointy faces of RG Veda to the softness of Suki: A Like Story, it's fascinating to watch – especially when this collection allows you to see the in-between stages of their art, like Clover and Wish.

Of course, that would be easier to see if the book were arranged chronologically. It's not; instead, it's put together with color as a unifying theme, opening in pink and ending in white, with many shades in between. The chosen color may be the background or the theme itself (as many Magic Knight Rayearth images use the girls' signature colors). At some points, the connection between two images is something like “red draperies” or something similar. An unfortunate side effect of this is that artwork from Tokyo Babylon, in particular, isn't always shown to its advantage; the blocky colors, which worked so well on the covers of the individual volumes, look almost clumsy compared to Chobits' use of the same. But in other cases, the individual series' styles stand out even more when compared to one another – the delicate steampunk aesthetic of Clover, with its mechanical flowers and bird cages, makes the flowing lines of xxxHOLiC look even more interesting.

If you're a CLAMP fan, this is worth the money. Although it doesn't have any written content apart from a glossary of where each image originated, the art itself is gorgeous, and seeing it all put together this way highlights the elements of each period in CLAMP's timeline. The cover may show fingerprints in a way that hurts my book-collecting soul, but it's hard to argue with the contents.