NEWS
Upcoming Releases (titles that got a news feature in bold)
Manga Video – Tokyo – The Last Megalopolis, Macross Plus 3, Angel Cop 4, New Dominion Tank Police 5
Kiseki – Fly Peek – Peek The Baby Whale
East To West – 8 Man After 2
Anime Projects – Oh My Goddess 3, Bubblegum Crisis 4 (dub)
Upcoming Japan Releases
Dirty Pair Flash II
El Hazard
Legend of Christiana
Slayers The Motion Picture
“New Century Evangelion” – a city under threat from the mysterious Apostles organisation is protected by a young girl and her robot! Sometimes these previews of Japanese releases are like a window into an alternate dimension.
Virgin Megastores Anime Top 20
Top three were the Patlabor movie, New Dominion 7, Angel Cop 2
Other News
Channel Four to air Cyber City Oedo 808, Tokyo Babylon, Devilman and Doomed Megalopolis. I taped every single one off the telly at the time. Anecdotally it seems to have been a key point in growing the UK anime fandom at this point in time.
COMICS
Akira – Part 25
Striker – Part 1 (aka Spriggan)
Dirty Pair: Sim Hell – Part 1
FEATURES
First Love – Cathy Sterling on Love City. Mainly comparing it to Akira, which leads into the next feature…
Deja Views – A one page feature comparing KO Century Beast Warriors to Ladius, then losing it’s theme totally with some Macross vagaries before a flippant Guyver remark.
Short Cuts – A one page “comedy” feature about anime hair cuts from Dave Jerrom. Totally filler in the proud tradition of UK publishing.
Renaissance Man – Julie Davis on Yuji Moriyama, and the Project A-Ko sequels in particular. This probably helped cement Yuji Moriyama in my brain as the earliest Japanese animator I was familar with.
COLUMNS
Get Animated – Letters include complaining about a dearth of robot shows available in the UK, dumb questions and people saying how great the magazine is.
Cyberdrome – A guide to getting on the internet and what to do once you are there.
Mega Byte – Here’s your regulation reference to Buichi Terasawa’s Apple, as Hudson Soft were apparently planning to release Space Adventure Cobra Digital Comic in the UK. Anyone know if that happened? Panzer Dragoon got 89% in the review.
Animatedly Yours – More on versioning manga for the US market.
REVIEWS
Top rated release was Ushio & Tora Comical Deformed Theatre with 4 stars. Of course it was. Starting to see harsher anime reviews now too, with nothing else getting more than 3 stars.
Channel Four’s late night anime was pretty popular at my school, even among people who wouldn’t normally watch such things. EVEN MY MOTHER ENDED UP WATCHING IT. It certainly cemented my own interest, alongside Super Play (and the realisation that most of my favourite 80s cartoons were themselves (part)anime.)
Then Pokemon struck, and I’m not sure anime in the UK ever really recovered from the heavily-merchandised kiddie image it brought along with it. Alternatively, my own interest in anime waned enough that I myself just lost track of what was showing where…!