I'm sure anyone who has watched Makoto Shinkai's works such as his recent "5 Centimetres per Second" will agree the backgrounds he manages to create are stunningly beautiful. Well, the good news is if you want to own a hard copy of all those backgrounds, you'll soon be able to.

According to this advert that Daike-san spotted, Kodansha will be publishing Makoto Shinkai's first official artbook "Makoto Shinkai Bijutsu Gashuu: Sora no Kioku" which is also given the English name of "The Sky for the Longing of Memorys". Yes, I know... "Longing for the Memories of the Sky" or the direct translation, "Memories of the Sky" is probably what they're after.

Anyway, the B5 sized book will be selling for 2800 Yen (US$27) on April 25th 2008 and contain 427 backgrounds taken from his movies "Voices of a Distant Star", "The Place Promised in Our Early Days", "5 Centimetres per Second" and even the ones used for the Shinano Daily Newspaper commercial "Conveying Those Important Things". It will also contain information about Shinkai's working environment and how such pieces of art are born.

Look out for it on the usual import sites such as YesAsia and Play-Asia! I'll be getting it myself if I can but with Wii Fit and the Rebuild of Evangelion 1.0 LE DVD coming up on the same day, it's going to tough on the wallet.