Presented here is the very art book created for the 6 minute Genma Visage Animated Pilot that concluded my time in University. A few copies of this book were sold at Small Press fairs in 2009. This idea for a feature-length movie and fighting game originated from the Psyomaster Ryuken era. An ancient, super-powerful villain would rise from the grave to unleash his cataclysmic prophecy upon the world. Set later in his series, this version of Ryuken would band together with newfound allies to fight the hardest battle of his life to take down this undead tyrant and his minions. That villain was Grail.

Years went by and the concept sat, grew and developed on the backburner. Grail would change from a hulking conqueror into the grotesque apparition more familiar to the Genma Visage series. The fantasy setting was dropped in favour of modern-day Science Fiction elements as the prospect of an urban metropolis, city life and nightclubs came into the mix. Also introduced was Tanya, a young progeny of a holy bloodline who was the key to Grail's downfall. Genma Visage cemented as a horror story in the final year of Uni. A maelstrom of character sketches, turnarounds, comic-based storyboards and backdrops was conjured to bring the most out of the idea. Then came the intense, painstaking task of animating it traditionally against the 3D or Flash-based options, right down to the lightbox that I still pull out occasionally to this day.

There was also one further incentive. I came up with complementary designs for a side-project nicknamed "Worlds beyond the Veil". Inspired by ABC Warriors and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the idea was for a band of mercenaries, designed to resemble 80s-90s rejected loathed anime characters, banding together to fight evil of sorts across the Galaxy. Besides one backdrop that made it into the Pilot, that project didn't flap its wings...until it became the basis for Usheana's Dad, Hanale whose special forces crew were shipped to Mars for the Maleka mission in the Lore story "Bulru Shonat vs Mahn-Gurudhum."

The Grail arc changed over time during Genma Visage's development. Tanya has since become a marginalised character protected from her apocalyptic fate, whereas Grail, for all his demonically primordial clout, plays 2nd fiddle to the bigger bad guys of the series, enforcing the theme that the most horrific things in creation are man-made. Their story is over for now, but I'd like to yield one more chapter or 2 in the upcoming Lore stories.

There's one minor discrepancy in terminology in this art book and the animation. Ryuken was referred to as a Youkai at this early stage because Youkai was a generalised term for all psychic monsters. It was later established that Drago \ Genma Visage creations and Demigod-status life forms are separate to the Youkai and other psychic monsters in this series. Otherwise, the events as presented in the animation and this art book are canon to Genma Visage. Be sure to check all relevant Bios in the Cast section and the animation itself.