NEWS
Upcoming Releases (titles that got a news feature in bold)
East2West – 8 Man After, Kekko Kamen and The Wicked City (not that one, this one)
Bloomsbury Publishing – Ironfist Chinmi
Manga VIdeo – Angel Cop 1, New Dominion Tank Police 2, Macross Plus 2, Legend of the 4 Kings 4, Godzilla vs Mothra, Tokyo Drifter
Columbia TriStar – Street Fighter (the live action film)
Western Connection – Dancougar, Hummingbirds, Ushio & Tora 4, Slow Step 2
Anime Projects – Oh My Goddess 3, Bubblegum Crisis 3 (dub)
Kiseki Films – Robotech 5, Star Blazers 6
Pioneer Video – Kishin Heidan 1 & 2, Green Legend Ran 3
Japan News
Lupin III Get Lost Nostradamus was airing
The X movie was announced.
Virgin Megastores Top 20 Anime Chart
Top three were The Guyver Volume 12, Ninja Scroll and Macross Plus Volume 1
COMICS
Akira – Part 22
Silent Mobius – Part 3
Firetripper – Part 1
FEATURES
Hard Labor – Peter J Evans gives a history of the Patlabor franchise. While the article mentions the first film is out in May, no mention of it is in the news pages. Looking it up, it actually came out in June, so I guess this was a case of articles not synching up with release dates. As good as this article is, I think the mainstream coverage the release got (I remember NME covering it) brought it more to my attention. Interesting to read about how special the idea of leaping from OAV to TV was still thought of here, in three years time that specialness would be dead and buried.
Fanimania – Dave Hughes reviews five UK fanzines, Animace, Animejin, Animenia, JAMM and Tales of the Cajun Sushi Bar.
Animejin leapt from print to web and for a while was the source for UK anime news in the absence of print publicaitons. I have a few issues of JAMM, a pretty great Belgian zine that filled a niche that barely exists now (episode and series summaries of shows you might never see). Animenia was the product of “Gaijin Press” that would lead to the launch of a magazine called ANIMEX at the end of 1996, that promptly evaporated into thin air. They were based in Grimsby, as I was at the time, but I don’t think I ever knowingly encountered them. Cajun Sushi Bar was a fanfic fanzine that was inexplicably popular among people who wrote reviews of fanzines, but that might be just be because I don’t understand people getting excited about fanfic unless it’s Shakespeare Hemingway.
Idol Worship – Simon Taylor on the concept of idol singers and the UK release of Hummingbirds in particular.
Branded To Thrill – David Chute on the director Seijun Sezuki. What is this doing in an anime magazine? Well the magazine was owned by Manga Video now and they were putting out two of his films with the ICA.
How To Draw The Manga Way – Wil Overton with a three part guide to how to draw in the Manga Way. There is no practical advice whatsoever in this first part, instead it is two pages of vague history & terms and two more pages of discussion of CG art. Because it was the nineties and CG art was THE FUTURE. We would all be Buichi Terasawa in the glorious world of Apples and comics.
COLUMNS
Get Animated – STANDARD LETTERS PAGE. Which is to say – one letter addressing a “controversy”, in this case subs vs dubs, one letter asking questions and a final letter rating each part of the magazine bit by bit.
Megabyte – Apparently the Saturn and Playstation might not take off in the West as we don’t like to change systems that often, so why not buy a 32X for your Megadrive instead. And apparently Nintendo might come out on top with their mystery Ultra 64 project. Also: Mega Man X2 gets 75%.
Cyberdrome – NANOMACHINES ARE GOING TO EAT US ALL. A wireless gamepad. Wristwatch telephone.
Animatedly Yours – Trish Ledoux talks about voice acting, and it all gets confusing at the end when it starts contradicting itself. I blame the editor.
Sumo Family – Robots fear can openers.
REVIEWS
The first two volumes of the Maison Ikkoku manga get 5 stars.
Anime picks this month include Kishin Heidan, New Dominion, Green Legend Ran and Plastic Little(!) with 4 stars each. Bottom of the pile was Legend of the Four Kings with 2 stars.