What is Blanc et Noir, Obata's art book?

Blanc et Noir, French for white and black, is Takeshi Obata's career art book, published by Shueisha on May 31, 2006. It collects his color illustration from 2001 to 2006: covers, chapter title pages, posters and centerfold art from Hikaru no Go and Death Note, plus novel illustrations and original pieces made for the book. An earlier, smaller collection, Aya, had covered the Hikaru no Go art alone in April 2002.

The physical object is the point. Viz Media's North American edition of May 3, 2016, in the Art of Shonen Jump line, is an oversized hardcover of about 10 by 14 inches in a silver-stamped slipcase: 132 pages of full-color art on deluxe papers, fold-out posters, three large double-sided laminated posters, and twelve pages of Obata commentary including a how to draw section. It was limited to a print run of 10,000 copies, at an MSRP of $99.99 at the time.

For collectors of the manga this is the companion piece: the weekly chapters were printed small and in black and white, but Obata's color work was always made at poster scale, and Blanc et Noir is where it was first gathered at something like its true size.