Animag was one of the earliest attempts at a professional English-language anime magazine, first published in 1987. It managed to outlast most of its peers, but Animag shut down when many of the staff jumped ship to start up Viz' Animerica magazine. The… more »

Ode to Kirihito is the first long, serial work from Osamu "God of Manga" Tezuka that I've read, even in part. Oh, sure, I've got a couple of volumes of Astro Boy, a shelf filled with Black Jack, and somewhere I've got a couple of the books from Tezuka's "life's work," Phoenix, but none of these series feature a single continuing plotline for more than a book or two at a time — Black Jack features plenty of continuity, but wraps up every individual story in a single chapter, and Phoenix is about reoccurring themes and elements rather than one cohesive narrative. Not to mention that Kirihito is aimed squarely at an adult audience, rather than the boys' comics he's more famous for. I've heard it said that Tezuka was a very competitive man, and works like Kirihito were something of a response to the independent gekiga ("dramatic pictures" — think "graphic novel") movement of the times, a chance for him to try a hand at more experimental styles of storytelling and presentation. So, the copy of the first of two volumes in Vertical's reissue of Ode to Kirihito that we at Colony Drop received fresh from our grocer's freezer (BUY VERTICAL PRODUCTS) is an exciting new experience for me. more »

I've had a couple of books from Viz's new prose fiction line, Haikasoru, sitting on my bookshelf for months now. Given my history of commentary on the cutting-edge of Japanese fiction in translation — and Mark's Yukikaze review popping up on the bl… more »

Chohei Kambayashi’s Yukikaze opens with a squadron of fighter-bomber jets carrying out a pounding airstrike on an outpost of their mysterious extraterrestrial foes. The strike appears to be a success, until, seemingly out of nowhere, the squadron is ambu… more »

Protoculture Addicts was first published as a Robotech fanzine back in 1987 by French Canadian college students operating out of a dorm room. They soon caught the attention of the company that owned Robotech, Harmony Gold, who gave them an ultimatum: giv… more »

Here's an odd one: a 254 page full color artbook published in 1986, in English, covering all 85 episode of Carl Macek's masterpiece Robotech. Bearing the title Robotech Art 1 and billing itself as "The Official Guide to the Robotech Universe," it contain… more »

Following the Gundam model kit boom in the early 1980s, Bandai's model kit marketing machine was relentless, and in terms of monthly periodicals it took two forms. The first and probably most familiar to western fans was B-Club Magazine, which spent abou… more »