everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

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davemerrill
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by davemerrill »

davemerrill wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:47 am
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.
I misspoke, just now noticed that two Akemi Takada art books Shaindle has are B-Club Specials.
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by SteveH »

That's really a burning question. I tend to shelve books by series (so all the Yamato RAs went in the special Yamato Only bookcase I kid you not :) ) but I had so many RAs I tended to keep them to themselves. All other mooks pretty much were series specific.

Part of the reason is I tend, even to this day, to generally consider a RA the 'last word' on a title. Almost always my go-to when I need to check something unless it's a VERY specific illo or model sheet.

The Newtype 100% books were generally nice, with great production design but somewhat shallow content-wise. I felt the same about the magazine. But man when it came to original cel-art for mecha shows they could NOT be beat. Newtype had a brief line of books (predating the 100% Collection branding) on L-Gaim that major big time crossed over into Five Star Stories, I think Sunrise wishes those never existed. I had two of the three volumes.

I will always be frustrated by the 'short stick' This Is Animation gave to Orguss (should have been three volumes not two) and Southern Cross (only one book and I think that barely covered like 12 episodes!) and they never continued those amazing 'Year in Animation' beauties.

The Out Magazine Specials for Macross and Vifam are pretty much on a par with the Office Academy published hardbacks for Yamato. Definitive works. The Votoms one was a bit shallow in some ways and way too fanspec in others. Richard Burton as a Melkian Red Shoulder officer (nee illo swiped from a movie') was a bridge too far...see what I did there HAHAHAHAH!

Futabasha did LOVELY books for Lupin III but again, it went belly-up (the publishing of new material, not the publisher going out of business) with only one mook for Lupin III part III, and even more sinful, NOTHING for the recent Part IV and V.

And No Animage cover for Yamato 2199 (one done as 'fan service' for the faithful).

I would really like to sit down with some of the Japanese old time fans, those that follow the deep cut science of publishing, and try to see if there are actually answers for some of these things.

I mean, here's part of the thing. These mooks existed when home video was just starting. They were time capsules for a show one might not be able to see again. (see also anime comics) but as VCRs became cheaper and more prevalent, as VHS and LDs and DVD sets started to enter the marketplace I'm sure it was thought "why bother" but it's not just those pages of photos from episodes that matter, it's the chara and mecha and setti sheets, it's the title lists, it's all that 'behind the scenes' stuff that still has value*

I think a listing of ALL the publishers and the kind of books is all but impossible. :)

*sez the guy who really doesn't read Japanese but mainly looks at pictures
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by SteveH »

danth wrote: Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:31 pm These are two that I've always wanted but can't find anywhere. For one thing it's just hard to search for them by title.

mospeada1.jpg

mospeada2.jpg
I am pretty sure those are more pamphlets than actual magazines or mooks. You might look at the key model companies that had the license like IMAI and L/S as an additional keyword.

Bandai and Takara published similar things.

Remember this was a time when the smaller companies were linking up in partnership to challenge Bandai and Takara in the hobby marketplace. It started with Macross and kept up for a couple of years (Orguss, Southern Cross, Mospeada, Galvion are the key shows that come to mind) but now it's the few remaining players scrambling to remain relevant in the face of Bandai's total dominance.
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by zimmerit »

SteveH wrote: Sat Oct 13, 2018 12:39 pm
danth wrote: Thu Oct 11, 2018 9:31 pm These are two that I've always wanted but can't find anywhere. For one thing it's just hard to search for them by title.

mospeada1.jpg

mospeada2.jpg
I am pretty sure those are more pamphlets than actual magazines or mooks. You might look at the key model companies that had the license like IMAI and L/S as an additional keyword.
They definitely are. Mandarake has a few of the Macross and Orguss ones, but it looks like the Mospeada booklets are long out of stock: https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/Lis ... AN&lang=en

FWIW, I couldn't find any on Yahoo Auctions but it looks like a few have sold recently so they're out there: https://auctions.yahoo.co.jp/closedsear ... B1&x=0&y=0

Your best bet is probably to use "モスピーダ情報" for searches on Japanese sites. Good luck!
Sean // zimmerit.moe
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by SteveH »

I'm glad Sean showed up, I figured he would have better knowledge of those booklets. It's one point of many where our anime Venn diagram overlap. :)
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by DKop »

davemerrill wrote: Sat Oct 13, 2018 7:43 am
davemerrill wrote: Tue Oct 09, 2018 5:47 am
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.
I misspoke, just now noticed that two Akemi Takada art books Shaindle has are B-Club Specials.
In terms of ARTMIC series that have Roman Albums, Gall Force The Revolution seemed to got one since it's showing up on that Madarake page.

https://order.mandarake.co.jp/order/det ... 6&ref=list

I can't image that being the ONLY Gall Force RA out there for just that later series.

Since you guys brought up Newtype (im assuming the magazine from Japan), did anyone ever read the ADV version of their Newtype USA mags? I got a whole bunch of those ive collected, and i've only scanned one so far for my blog:

http://animeofyesteryear.blogspot.com/2 ... 2-feb.html
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by Drew_Sutton »

davemerrill wrote: Sat Oct 13, 2018 5:36 am and now I'm asking myself, do I need to start shelving these by publisher, instead of by series?
Granted, my collection probably isn't as extensive as yours or Steve's or Sean's, but I've got mine grouped by book series (ok, my NewType 100% books) then by anime series.
davemerrill wrote:I'm familiar with the New Type 100% books, but have never owned any. The publication range of the 100% books seemed to be about 90% Gundam and 10% other shows I wasn't interested in.
Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment. Being quite the Gundam nut, I was good with quite a bit of the 100% book line, but I remember seeing the same couple Evangelion and Nadesico film books all around in the 90s and thought the line was generally mecha focused but looking at the Mandarake link, that line gets a lot wider. Much wider than I'd ever could have thought and now I'm glad I ditched the idea of focusing on a collection specifically of 100% books.
SteveH wrote:The Newtype 100% books were generally nice, with great production design but somewhat shallow content-wise. I felt the same about the magazine.
Yeah, at a time where there weren't a consistent line, like the Roman Albums for instance, and what seems like a lack of series specific books, the 100%s are a good enough reference material. Agreed though that the art and production values are fantastic.
davemerrill wrote:I was never that big a fan of New Type, and I can't tell if it's because the magazine was focused on shows I wasn't that interested in, or if I wasn't interested in the anime that was being made at the time, and New Type just happened to focus on what was being made at the time. The magazine was very stylish, lots of white space, big illustrations, a little more upscale than Animage, I guess.
I'd think it is a mix of all of those. I have only a few copies of the magazine from the early 2000s when I was trying to keep up with what was coming out in Japan, staying ahead of the curve. I also only have a couple of Animage's from that time and they seem to be about the same in all terms of quality and depth. I have a couple of older Animage's from the 1980s but have never had corresponding NewTypes to do a side-by-side comparison.

I will say that both magazines (and others like them that I've browsed online, like OUT or The Anime) are good for seeing what was big and getting pushed at an instance in time or what time/networks something might have been airing but I haven't seen too much research value in them beyond that. Even then, what's being pushed can be misleading for what actually has some lasting impact. I'd hate for someone to come back in another ten years and look at those spreads from 2002 or 2003 and think that Noir was all the rage :lol: Of course, those types of spreads are good for finding what might be hidden gems (or just rocks) that aren't really talked about anymore. That's kinda what I get out of thumbing through my old Animage magazines.
SteveH wrote:I mean, here's part of the thing. These mooks existed when home video was just starting. They were time capsules for a show one might not be able to see again. (see also anime comics) but as VCRs became cheaper and more prevalent, as VHS and LDs and DVD sets started to enter the marketplace I'm sure it was thought "why bother" but it's not just those pages of photos from episodes that matter, it's the chara and mecha and setti sheets, it's the title lists, it's all that 'behind the scenes' stuff that still has value
I think this is important to keep this in mind when it comes to comparing why the 80s seemed to have multiple books for a variety of shows and there's substantially fewer books about anime series as the decades march on. If a series from the 90s had mooks printed, like some of my Kenshin mooks, the size and depth of those mooks got a lot thinner. But in the late 90s with prevalence of cheap of tapes and VCRs, there was zero chance that series would disappear from fans who wanted to see it again. Quite different from the 1980s when tapes and VCRs were much more expensive and a commercial home video release was far from guaranteed, mooks like this from a variety of publishers made a lot more sense.
DKop wrote:Since you guys brought up Newtype (im assuming the magazine from Japan), did anyone ever read the ADV version of their Newtype USA mags?
Yeah - NewType is the monthly magazine, the NewType 100% books are series specific collections of animation work, character & mecha designs, settei, etc. Both are published by the same company, Kadokawa.

I have one issue of the NewType USA that ADV published and flipped through a couple of other issues. Side by side, it is exactly what you get from the Japanese NewType magazine.
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Re: everything you never needed to know about Roman Albums

Post by DKop »

Drew_Sutton wrote: Sun Oct 14, 2018 5:56 pm
DKop wrote:Since you guys brought up Newtype (im assuming the magazine from Japan), did anyone ever read the ADV version of their Newtype USA mags?
Yeah - NewType is the monthly magazine, the NewType 100% books are series specific collections of animation work, character & mecha designs, settei, etc. Both are published by the same company, Kadokawa.

I have one issue of the NewType USA that ADV published and flipped through a couple of other issues. Side by side, it is exactly what you get from the Japanese NewType magazine.
I think they did a good job on making a 1/1 version of the Japanese Newtype issues, even if its chock full of most of their shows they're trying to push to be great series that were anything but (harem anime especially). I knew a lot of new shows through episode synopsis, and they wrote some really good articles depending on who was writing what. I'd say its a good reference material for anything from Fred Patton if anyone wants to read more of his articles.
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