A quick look through a 30-year-old catalog from garage kit manufacturer Kotobukiya.
What Could Have Been: Gainax’s Brief Stint as Video Game Consultants
The reputation of Gainax is one that looms large among anime fans. The studio’s iconoclastic origin story and the meteoric rise of Hideaki Anno, its star creator, have become the stuff of legend. But there are still pockets of Gainax history that remain largely unexplored.
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.
After the End: The Never-Made Evangelion Film
Long before the Rebuild of Evangelion series, plans existed to create an all-new original Evangelion film after the TV series ended. While it was never made, two different proposals for this film are known to exist.
Progress and Nostalgia for Mankind: The Persistence of Expo ’70
With a progressive, science-based theme, Expo ’70 presented a future of unlimited opportunity to the schoolchildren of Japan. It never quite panned out, but Expo ’70s influence and presence have endured in the decades since.
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.
Bandai’s Brain Bank Media: B-Club
At the tail end of the gunpla boom, Bandai’s enthusiast publishing and garage kit division, B-Club, unleashed a monthly magazine and dozens of garage kits on a modeling community that was growing out of normal plastic model kits.
Fewture’s Full-Size Zeiram Prop Kits
Keita Amemiya’s Zeiram series inspired plenty of garage kits, but none were quite as fascinating as a series of life-sized relicas based on props actually used in the films.
Two Factory: A Translated Interview with Kow Yokoyama and Makoto Kobayashi
In 1988, Kow Yokoyama and Makoto Kobayashi stood atop the artist and model making scene. Their illustrations and model work appeared in anime, magazines, video games, and a collaborative artbook called Two Factory.
Kabukicho Wars: The Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 Plan & Design Document
Metal Skin Panic MADOX-01 was one of the unsung heroes of the OVA boom. Presented here for the first time is an early design document outlining the OVA’s plot and designs, in both Japanese and English.