Goten

Back from Akihabara and what’s in my bag?

From left to right, kinda

Gatsby Hair Wax
Black Pepper Pringles
Be Forever Yamato Roadshow Special
Earplugs (mismatched colors)
Magical Mystery Tour keychain (broken)
Pre-paid cell phone card
Headphones (mismatched earbuds)
Business cards from Nippon TV and NHK
3.0 point Muji black ink pen
Flyer for Mizuno Garden sex toys (more about those later)
Rider-Waite Tarot Deck
iPod Nano (broken screen, still works)
Marlboro Reds
Suspicious sunglasses
DVD booklet containing discs marked “Blazin’ Hazen" and "Bosozoku ‘94”
Batman Notebook
Digital Camera (not seen, broken lens)

Comments

[Carl Horn]

Junko Mizuno, I'm happy to say, will be the guest of honor at Anime Central the weekend after next, where I'll get to introduce her. Viz has published her manga and Dark Horse her stationery and coasters, but not yet her sex toys.

[Paper BoyXXX]

I guess you're missing the PURIKURA with a ugly maid that you scooped on at Akihabara station!!!

Bob Sapp Yoroshiku!!!!!!!!!

[Steve Harrison]

You're missing a few items...where are the 'nylons, female, one pair', the chocolate, the condoms and the suicide coin?

Your Be Forever Yamato Roadshow special makes me pine for the days of easy book licensing.

Looking at my Yamato Library, Be Forever runs neck-and-neck with Arrivederci Yamato, Final Yamato running Third even with the 'All Yamato' books...there's not a lot of love shown to Yamato III. Not even Nishizaki's 'self publishing'(the beautiful Academy hardcovers) efforts touched Yamato III. Blarg.

[Patrick Macias]

I think there's the Yamato III Roman Album and....that's it? Keep in mind that there weren't a lot of books either for Yamato 2. Based on the amount of second-hand stuff in perfect condition at Mandarake, methinks that they may have overprinted Be Forever books, expecting that it would be bigger than Can't Stop the Music. I mean, it still was one of the top-grossing films of the year in Japan, but how many pullout posters of cutaways of the Yamato does a person need? Well, besides me and Steve anyways...

[Steve Harrison]

You know, I really have to bug my friend Jerry to get more Yamato book data on his Space Webzine Yamato. Thanks to Yahoo Japan auctions his collection has rapidly exceeded mine, but I keep slugging away.

Yah, Yamato 2 doesn't get the love either, but at least THAT has some crossover with Arrivederci Yamato. Yamato III, it's just Roman Album # 43, and Ledosha's 'Perfect Memorial' # 17, a slim little 480 Yen vest pocket book.

I mean, day-am, not even a Keibunsha encyclopedia!

(there is a pretty good Y III section in Perfect Manual II, Roman Album #54, but I jones for the stand-alone mooks)

Listen to me go on...next thing you know I'll be bitching about "howcome no 1000 Year Queen TV series Roman Album, Tokuma Shoten bitches YO!" (answer of course being that the TV series had it's book license picked up by Sankei, thus breaking the long standing Toei/Matsumoto/Tokuma link...geezus! stop me!)

I like books.

[Patrick Macias]

I like books too. And the anime-tokusatsu ones might be the only real old school otaku things I still collect.

Yeah, the Y3 section in the Roman Meal Album always kinda pissed me off. They skipped over entire episodes and compressed story arcs to try and warp through the show as fast as they could, almost as if, I dunno, it *didn't really matter* or something.

I don't know what I'm looking for by buying every single Yamato book...new episodes? White powder sprinkled in-between the pages from Nishizaki HQ? The best finds of late have been in old issues of Animage, like that time they ran a joke cell of Alphon deep kissing Yuki.

But the Be Forever Roadshow is nice. The funny thing about it is that whoever designed the thing neglected to anamorphically un-squeeze the widescreen images, so all the shots from the second half of the movie look like macaroni western credits when shown on TV back in the day...

[Steve Harrison]

Ahhh, reminds me of my first Japanese pro tape, which happened to be Be Forever Yamato. The whole final act, thru the black hole and into the world of..oh, what did they call the process, Warp Dimension? when the screen went from 'flat' to anamorphic widescreen? This pro tape didn't switch lenses in the film chain, so suddenly it's *WHOMP* Kodai's nose speaking dramatically to Shima's nose!

(Toei Video TE-M463, a whopping 19,800 Yen!)

If you're on a BFY binge, keep an eye out for the Screen Magazine book. It has a surprisingly low budget look to the cover that appeals to me, and is on my 'get one' list. I think it's the ONLY Yamato special Screen did, but I wouldn't swear to that, because when it comes to Japanese books, the one thing I am sure of is how much I don't know :)

[Patrick Macias]

You are correct, sir! Warp Dimension it was!

Here are some notes about the process cribbed from Yu Hayakaya's liner notes for the Be Forever BGM (in turn, pinched from starblazers.com)

"Also, technical advances were added to the film itself. The chief example was the “Warp Dimension” technique, which had been kept secret until the release of the film. Before your eyes, the projected picture changed from Vista to Cinerama scope after Yamato goes through the Dark Nebula and into the unknown space of the enemy. The sound also changed from monophonic to 4 channel magnetic stereo. At that moment, the entire scale of the film expanded. It was entertaining because it reminded me of the works of William Castle, who built many contrivances into the theater which played his own films. One can only get the full impact of this change at a theater. (On home video, when the picture switches to wide screen, the image area becomes narrower.) It is getting increasingly difficult to see this film at theaters because the projection staff has to attach an anamorphic lens to the other projector and wait while screening the first reel, and the number of theaters equipped with 4 channel magnetic stereo sound is extremely small. (The present stereophonic sound uses digital multi channel systems.) Even in a time of high-quality home-video hardware, I would rather experience Be Forever Yamato through devices only found at a theater and with a dignity of presentation at every level--story, direction, music, and art--on a big screen once again."

[Steve Harrison]

I just pine for the days of hiring a freakin' cruise ship and (at least in publicity shots) have it deco'ed like the Yamato, and a huge blowout intro concert at the Budokan..

You just don't SEE shit like that nowadays.

Only thing I can't figure, king of merchandising that Nishizaki was, why he didn't film the Budokan event..I know home video was still quickening in 1980, but he was so forward thinking otherwise...

I don't know if you could replicate the BFY experence in today's theater. So many are single platter single projector machines, and I hear the new thing is a seperate soundtrack disc (I think it's a LD sized DVD)..you'd have to play with the optical and 4 track mag audio and mix up some new THX multi channel shit..

aarrggh.

[Carl Horn]

I feel rather inadequate in this conversation, but I agree that old-school ANIMAGE is a garden of earthly delights. I've got an almost complete run of the first ten years. For old times' sake, I'm proud of the fact Dark Horse is doing an English version of a Roman Album—in this case, SAMURAI CHAMPLOO. I made sure to emphasize to the marketing department that this is a famous imprint.

[Steve Harrison]

Carl, don't worry...I'm an inclusive kind of guy...you just don't have THE BUG...the all consuming need to buy books.

It was Yuji at Books Nippan..he was my 'dealer' for my chosen 'drug'...my supplier of monthly anime magazines...

But you know what? As cool as Animage was (and even back in the day it was the 'prestige' mag, the big kahuna), I think My Anime was my fave. Animage and Tokuma had a lot of the inside track on things,but the My Anime inserts were just INSANE at times.

Of course there was a cost, and in '85 the market was getting tight, and the Zeta Gundam license pretty much killed The Anime magazine, so My Anime became a bi-weekly...and promptly died. I have not been able to find out how LONG it lasted as a bi-weekly, and it all became confused because Yuji went back to Japan sometime between Dec.85 and Jan. 86, when I discovered he had never actually written up subscriptions for the magazines for me, but had just been pulling them every month and shipping, billing me for them. Dang, that was customer service.

Due to the health problems and lack of money I got out of the habit of buying the mags back in '96...but I still have a HUGE stack- mid 1982-1996 (with some gaps) of Animage, Animedia, My Anime, The Anime, B-Club, Newtype and a handful of Dual Magazine..and all the inserts..

Which of course is a beautiful, beautiful research resource of the 'golden age' :)

and yes, were I to make a trip to Japan, I would likely waste lots of money buying back and forwards of my collection, fill the gaps...

[Carl Horn]

I've got a short stack of THE ANIME, MY ANIME, and OUT as well.

[Steve Harrison]

Yeah, I need more OUT magazine..actually, I need any. Given the amazing quality of the special books they produced (Gundam Century, Macross Perfect Memory, Vifam Perfect Memory and Votoms Odyssey), I can't help but think the magazine itself was fairly cool.

Anyone know if they produced more than those 4 'big name anime' specials?

[Carl Horn]

I think so; I may have some of them. Although I would buy some mags here and there back in the day, my big score was in 1994, when I moved back to California. While in Kinko's, copying homemade (!) flyers to promote the theatrical screening of THE WINGS OF HONNEAMISE in Berkeley (I hit Shattuck and Telegraph with them and my staple gun), a complete stranger next to me said he was moving and looking to sell his anime magazines. He lived around the corner, and I gaped in wonder at four boxes' worth of late-70s and early-80s mags--almost all bagged in excellent condition, with their original inserts. I gave him $400, which I think was pretty much all the money I had at the time.

In 1997, when I returned to Japan, I hit Mandarake. Magazines there are less likely to have their inserts, and will be more worn, but at 300 yen or so are an interstellar bargain. I had brought a rolling piece of luggage, and, eyes shining with greed, filled it with vintage ANIMAGEs. I hadn't even considered that it might be over the weight limit on the return flight--which it was, but the kindly check-in clerk, perhaps an otaku himself, waved it through.

[Steve Harrison]

Carl, you rule. $400 for those boxes of mags is a dead shot score.

Damn, those were good days.