everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

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davemerrill
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everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by davemerrill »

It's a new Let's Anime and it's all about Roman Albums, those Tokuma Shoten anime guidebooks that were at one time an integral part of our anime experience, and then they kind of faded out of the collective anime nerd experience.
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How many Roman Albums did you have? Read all about 'em at Let's Anime!

https://letsanime.blogspot.com/2018/10/ ... mpire.html
davemerrill
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by davemerrill »

I don't know why those other two images failed to load, but here they are again...

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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by karageko »

I'd pay money for a complete electronic collection of these old treasures. I'm trying to keep my physical collecting in check to preserve shelf space.

When I was trying to find an English resource to explain what a Roman Album was, I had found some old article in 2002. Now I can just link to this, so it's much appreciated. A post with pictures of all the covers makes it a more digestible read for the people who've never heard of the term.
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by karageko »

karageko wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 12:00 pm When I was trying to find an English resource to explain what a Roman Album was, I had found some old article in 2002.
Whoops, I meant to say I had found some old article published in 2002.
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by DKop »

It seems the answer to Roman Albums for Bubblegum Crisis would be the B-Club issues that came out about the series, same with other anime that had B-Club books. Bubblegum Crisis wasn't the only OVA to get a B-Club if im not mistaken. And were B-Clubs only for series by ARTMIC at the time?
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by davemerrill »

karageko wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 12:00 pm I'd pay money for a complete electronic collection of these old treasures. I'm trying to keep my physical collecting in check to preserve shelf space.

When I was trying to find an English resource to explain what a Roman Album was, I had found some old article in 2002. Now I can just link to this, so it's much appreciated. A post with pictures of all the covers makes it a more digestible read for the people who've never heard of the term.

When I first started working on this piece, I figured there would already be an English-language article or website somewhere, listing all the Roman Albums, probably with illustrations. Well, if there was, I couldn't find it. A lot of those cover images I had to extract from Japanese auction sites; even the Japanese haven't worked up a comprehensive guide to Roman Albums. Tokuma Shoten needs to publish a Roman Album Roman Album!
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by davemerrill »

DKop wrote: Mon Oct 08, 2018 12:51 pm It seems the answer to Roman Albums for Bubblegum Crisis would be the B-Club issues that came out about the series, same with other anime that had B-Club books. Bubblegum Crisis wasn't the only OVA to get a B-Club if im not mistaken. And were B-Clubs only for series by ARTMIC at the time?
I have no idea; I don't think I've ever owned an issue of B-Club.
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by DKop »

I've got some "mini" B-Clubs of bubblegum crisis, which are smaller sized books, and i've got a few of them on my shelf. The larger ones go for a good amount of cash on eBay, unless they're way cheaper on Yahoo Japan auctions, which im sure they are.
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by usamimi »

davemerrill wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:46 am Tokuma Shoten needs to publish a Roman Album Roman Album!
:lol: YES that'd be perfect!!

I think every publisher between the 80s & 90s had something similar to Roman Albums, since it'd be kinda dumb not to. I have some Nakayoshi Memorial Albums for Sailor Moon & Rayearth, some 100% Newtype books for things like Lodoss & Tenchi, some B-clubs for Bubblegum Crisis & Dangaioh...Newtype even put out some smaller books similar to B-clubs for things like Evangelion.
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by SteveH »

Time has given hints to some questions, and increasing knowledge can logic out others, but SO MUCH UNKNOWN!
One of the answers to "why didn't they do a RA on..." was obviously exclusive deals between production and a publisher. Bandai flirted with challanging Tokuma Shoten by publishing B-Club Specials (Artmic signed on hence BGC volumes), Macross pretty much belonged to Shogakukan, Lupin III was caught by Futabasha and so on.

What *I* want to know is:

When did the RA start using dust jackets, which completely elevated the book from 'children's literature' to SERIOUS BUSINESS? I really think it had to do with Arrivederci, Yamato but I have no proof.
Did the 'sub heads' have anything to do with price or page count or pack-in extras? In other words what did 'RA Extra' or 'RA Deluxe' mean?
What about the un-numbered Roman Albums?

And finally: Why the hell did Tokuma Shoten STOP, and just decided to crank out publications on Studio Ghibli product? I mean I get it, there's probably a long licensing deal and even profit participation/ownership but geeze. Given the ongoing nostalgia craze it seems easy money to make a line of 'Shin Roman Album' and tackle those 'lost' anime. Of course the problem NOW is licensing and more importantly, finding production materials and ability to interview, seeing as so many creators are dead now. No asking Toyo "Tommy" Ashida about Fist of the North Star *sigh*

I would gladly pay 2800 Yen for a StarzanS Roman Album.

And otherwise: How the heck could the Keibunsha line of mini books manage to publish just about EVERYTHING? Altho I don't ever recall them doing Lupin III...
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