OK. 1980. I had read that 'catalyst point' Fred Patten article in the pro-zine 'Fanfare'. As part of my early self-education I was thrilled to learn there existed magazines in Japan that actually covered this fascinating 'Japanimation' stuff. Well, dandy for them. I don't live in Japan, so I was sure I'd never see such a thing. Oh, I'm sure that any city that had a decent Japanese ex-pat presence like, say, L. A., Hawaii, maybe NYC, they may have a bookstore that sold to the Japanese community, but here, in the great unwashed of the Midwest? *Pffft*.
1982. Con in the Detroit area, either Conclave or Confusion I just can't remember which (and it may well have been Dec. '81). It snowed so bad the State Police closed down the highways and the ConCom extended the con as 'Continuation'. This was an important weekend as this is where I met Marg Baskin and her Canadian Crew, and they introduced me to Ardith Carlton. This whole thing is a different story, SEVERAL different stories that I shall revisit in other ways, Come Feb. '82 and Capricon in Chicago, I was well and truly hooked, and here Ardith told me of Books Nippan, and Melody Records, and Pony Toy-Go-Round, and soon after the con I made that first long-distance call, where I met Yuji Hiramatsu, a very friendly guy whom I had figured was just some dude at the store who got tagged with dealing with the crazy fanboys. Oh, so wrong was I.
I talked with him, ordered some Roman Albums, got them promptly via UPS, and along with the books and the bill (yes, just over the phone, arranged to be billed, not pay upfront. Either I was that good or things were just easier back then). Inside also was a crude catalog, listing other books, posters and all the magazines. Huh. Guess there's more than that Animage as seen in Fanfare.
So, a bit later, another call, and I subscribed to Animage, Animedia, My Anime and The Anime. Again, billed, no upfront cost. Totally honor system.
My first issues were June 1982. That was a FAT bubble envelope arriving on my porch. It was magic. Simply magic. I looked at many,many pictures. Eventually I did figure some stuff out, how to 'use' the magazines, what they seemed to be focused on.
Animage was the tone-y mag. classy, Scholarly, seemed a bit 'dry' but decent goods overall.
Animedia was the only saddlestich stapled mag (at the time) and it seemed to skew younger, seemingly mostly pushing the kid shows.
My Anime was pretty much my favorite, as I had the sense it was written by guys like me, who loved the stuff and weren't ashamed, and knew what fans wanted. Most of the best gimmies, the 'establishment sheet' booklets and series guidebooks seemed to come from My Anime.
The Anime seemed to be the also-ran, with production values maybe a little more polished than My Anime, wanting to walk the line between Animage and Animedia.
So, every month I had a $30-some bill to look forward to, plus constant calls to Yuji to try and grab books shown in ads within the magazines- a difficult task with my less-than-Kindergarten understanding of Japanese. I missed out on some things that made me sad.
It was a heady time in the early '80s. The monthly anime mags were just cranking out the goodies like nobody's business! One well-use booklet was the My Anime gimmie for Endless Road SSX, the only standalone publication of key model sheets (and my frustration over THAT is another post!). I can't recall how many times I was called upon to photocopy out of that thing. Then there was the metric buttload of stuff for Macross.
Many, many things happened as time passed, all stories ripe for the telling, but I fast-forward to 1985 and the odd things going on at Books Nippan. Yuji had hired a man by the name of Kevin Seymore to run the 'animation club' and, pardon me for being horrible, something about him set me off instantly. he had his own agenda. He wanted people to buy the Japanese rock mags such as BUUURRRRNNN, he wanted to push high price (and high markup) airbrush 'art' books to mainstream booksellers, he really didn't know much about that anny-may stuff. And funny stuff started going on with my magazine subscriptions. I missed issues. My Anime went bi-weekly and I never got them. The Anime simply vanished. Newtype started and I was getting that, and of course the bubble was bursting, the Yen was getting stronger and prices were going up. And then, I stopped getting the mags sometime early in '86.
Here's what I learned, back then and over the years. Yuji Hiramatsu was NOT 'just some guy', he was a corporate V.P.! I did NOT have a subscription, he was (or had someone) pulling copies off the stacks every month and bagging them up to send to me as a 'customer service' favor! And sometime late '85 or early '86 he was returned to Japan and Kevin was the guy in charge of the fanboy stuff.
The Anime, death of, I still don't know the story. I *believe* it has to be tied to the fees they paid for the rights to produce books on Zeta Gundam. They released a 10 book set of Photonovels for Zeta, right as the Home Video Boom was exploding. I just imagine lots of copies of those 'anime comics' sitting on shelves as the Zeta fans tape each episode week after week. (saying that, the mooks they produced for Zeta were all stellar publications)
So, mad scramble to get my fix of the mags. A Japanese bookstore near Detroit was of some use but not much, I ended up getting some mags from Detroit area comic shops that were 'into' the anime thing but that didn't last long. Dry spell until 1992, and a trip to Chicago for another Capricon, and discovering the Yaohan Japanese 'mini mall' in Arlington Heights. Inside were a Pony Toy and Asahiya Books, and monthly trips to Chicago became the norm.
But that, as they say, is yet another tale.
My last significant buy of anime mags was around 1996. Health issues, loss of job, and blah blah made trips like that impossible. Weakening Dollar made buying the mags completely insane, as Asahiya put a HUGE markup on their stuff, based on maintaining a specific 200% markup from cost, unadjusted for Dollar/Yen exchange rates but set back in the '80s when it was around 230¥ = $1 USD
(and yes, sorry to tease, that's ANOTHER thread I intend to run
)Now, recently, I've gotten a couple issues of Dengiki Hobby due to Yamato 2199 stuff, and Tim has been kind enough to drop some duplicate Hobby Japans on me, and brother, what changes have gone on with the model mags! I'm almost afraid to see the anime mags now.
Now I pause, because I assume some will want clarifications or challenge some things above.
) wherever you are, wants to chime in with what current prices are I'd be happy to talk about it. 
)