The Old School Otaku Lounge

Apparently started as an extension of UC Irvine's campus bookstore? One of the employees, Mike Kiley, would eventually go on to help start Tokyopop.

A few more details, from a 1999 ANN Interview:

Kiley: I was working at UCI, and as you might know, that was the heyday of the alternative comics era, with companies like Image putting out hot sellers. I was dealing with the now-defunct Capital City comics distributor, and they were listing these weird little animated films from Japan, as well as comic books and a few other things. We were looking to carry some new things, so we tried it on a whim, really.

ANN:And it just built from that?

Kiley: Well, UCI is really predisposed to that sort of market, since over 50% of the place is Asian. Obviously, it really took off, and in 1992 we decided to put the bookstore on the internet. We were the first bookstore online, beating Amazon.com by over a year (after which, they proceeded to kick my ass). [laughs]

The internet, as you know, really changed everything. Our part on the internet started in '92 when we opened up a gopher site, and the response was tremendous. The anime demographic is one that is very internet-savvy, and we were lucky to catch the wave when we did.

(http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/1999-04-01)

Cal Animage Epsilon formed at UC Irvine in 1990; not sure if they had any sort of more formal relationship with Alt.ant, though...

A sealed import laserdisc copy of Wedding Peach from Alt.ant, courtesy of tpgb12 over on the LaserDisc Database forums. (^_^)

I recall buying some CDs from the UCI bookstore in the mid '90s, around the '95/96 period. I also recall giving them a rather careful list of Space Battleship Yamato CDs, (the mid '90s 'West Cape Corp becomes Voyager Entertainment' period) with suggestions and specifics on which were the most likely to be good sellers and which would end up not selling (I concentrated on the soundtrack and BGM CDs and suggested he avoid the Drama Albums for one thing). I was not that happy about his pricing structure as he was significantly over the current Dollar/Yen exchange rate (and I have to assume he was buying wholesale in Japan because buying at retail for resale is a suckers game) but surprisingly he WAS better than buying CDs at the Asahiya Books in Chicago. Luckily CD Japan came along not too much later and made buying Japanese CDs so much nicer, and THEN comes Amazon Japan and well. Had I the money I would buy SO MANY CDs...

They didn't last long, UCI Anime store. The fluctuating Yen/Dollar rate plus the old bug-a-boo of "But that is old anime. Nobody wants. This is new anime!" from Japan likely hurt as well.

This is a good reminder that I need to finish that 'Japan and retail and America' essay. I'll get to that.

I used to shop there. One of my wife's best friends was an employee there (and the UCI bookstore in general). Several years ago, she told me that there's still some anime merch stashed away in storage somewhere.

It seems some of their stock of anime laserdiscs wound up at Alakazam Comics in Irvine. Alakazam has been selling these new titles, like the above example, on eBay for the past few years (not sure if they have anything left, all the good stuff has been picked over). I got copies of a few GE999 TV special and a Queen Emeraldas OVA from this Alt.ant cache. Quite cool for the history...Alakazam had a copy of the Tenchi Muyo THX LD box that looked sweet indeed, but too rich for my blood.

It wouldn't be that surprising if another such lot of Alt.ant stock is floating around in some back corner in Irvine...pirate's treasure.