2008 ARIA Calendar (Manga Version)

Product Information/Specifications

Introduction

As I was looking for a new calendar for 2008, I wasn't able to find a good one that I like & knew.  After a long time of thinking, I decided to go for this 2008 ARIA calendar.  I didn't have much information about it in terms of the format & what illustrations it would have.  With no other choice & not wanting to go for TV anime ones, I got this.

Some of the pictures aren't clear & good.  If I have time, I'll redo the bad ones & repost them.

The Review

2008 ARIA calendar manga version cover

This 2008 ARIA calendar wasn't something that I wanted much.  It was the wall version.  I was going for the desktop ones.  But the good thing about this one is that it's not a tearaway version.  The pages are bind together with a wire coil.  So you can flip the pages over without tearing them away or ripping them.  Seeing that made me feel at ease.

The calendar covers the entire 2008 year from January to December.  There are a total of eight pages including the cover.  Six of them are used as actual calendar pages.  The last page is the same as the cover without the text.  Each page covers two months.

All illustrations here aren't new.  I recognized most of them from the Kozue Amano illustration books that I have.  The differences from some of them isn't just size, but the extra added text.  Also, the colours seem to be a bit duller than the originals.

I kind of like how the dates are laid out on the calendar.  They are placed on the bottom in row format.  The top row is the first month & the bottom is the second month.  In the middle are the days in English.  I'm not use to this format as I never owned a calendar like that before, but I like it.

Overall Conclusion

The 2008 ARIA Calendar is a nice wall calendar to own.  The white border & the date format is neat.

The 2008 ARIA Calendar gets an eight out of ten from me.  The illustrations are nice & the colours are pretty soft for a manga style calendar.  Problem is that the illustrations are reused from past sources, so nothing is new here.  The only thing new about them is the added text.

This calendar may be hard to find now as this is a first run production only. Given the popularity of ARIA, this calendar is going to be hard to find.  In fact, I pre-ordered this in time before YesAsia closed it due to it being out of print already before it was even released.

Photos were taken using Sony DSC-F828 digital still camera.

Last updated on May 27, 2008