The convention that changed anime kicked off on August 22, 1981.
Category: Briefs
Resin Royalty: Kotobukiya’s Original Kit Catalog of 1991
A quick look through a 30-year-old catalog from garage kit manufacturer Kotobukiya.
Direct-to-Video Model Kit Movies: The S.F.3.D Nutrocker Video
At the end of the gunpla boom, Hobby Japan and Nitto teamed up to release a direct-to-video short film based on Kow Yokoyama’s model kit and photonovel series, S.F.3.d.
Hideaki Anno’s Macross Movie Production Comic
As an up-and-coming young animator, Hideaki Anno worked on big animated films like Nausicaä and Macross: Do You Remember Love? For a brief time in 1984, he had a short comic feature that ran in Comic Box Jr. detailing his production experiences.
The Filming Models of Koichi Ohata’s Genocyber
Unearthed via the DVD-ROM features of an ancient US Manga Corps digital video disc, we speculate on the provenance of the models used for filming on Genocyber.
Mach Vision: A Bubble Era Arcade Game from Sega, Nissan, and Makoto Kobayashi
In the Japanese economic bubble of the late ‘80s, seemingly anything was possible. That’s why it shouldn’t be surprising to hear that Nissan, Sega, and Makoto Kobayashi collaborated on a massive, event-only arcade game that seemingly defied the technical limitations of the era.
Gunpla Doujin: Universal Century 0087
What was a diehard Gundam modeler in 1986 to do if they weren’t satisfied by Bandai’s kits based on the all-new Zeta Gundam? This doujin by Studio Mk-0 offered detailed how-to guides for improving your gunpla
Kaba and the Commercial Art of Katsuhiro Otomo
Renzo revisits the classic Otomo artbook ‘Kaba,’ highlighting the world-renowned director’s work outside of anime and manga.
Shinji Aramaki’s Student Film Moon Struck Artemis
While part of the Okayama University Manga Club in 1981, Shinji Aramaki (MADOX-01, Appleseed) and other students created what an anonymous Wikipedia editor praised as “a masterpiece of the anime club era.”
Kow Yokoyama’s Robot Battle V
The creator of Maschinen Krieger kept busy in the ’80s by, among other things, penning a gritty sci-fi comic for a mostly forgotten video game magazine.