There was no shortage of anime magazines in the 1980s, but what about all those other things the maniacs cared about? Cosplay, garage kits, doujin, dinosaurs… Do-Pe covered an eclectic array of otaku interests over its brief three-year run.

There was no shortage of anime magazines in the 1980s, but what about all those other things the maniacs cared about? Cosplay, garage kits, doujin, dinosaurs… Do-Pe covered an eclectic array of otaku interests over its brief three-year run.
Gundam fans dancing in the streets in Tokyo circa 1980. Who were the Tominoko Tribe?
Way back in 1985, Hobby Japan (the biggest name in hobby magazines) attempted to diversify with an all-new periodical focused on the broad spectrum of otaku subculture. The experiment lasted three issues.
A tongue-in-cheek taxonomical breakdown of otaku fandom circa 1985 from the pages of Monthly OUT.
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.”
Decades of accolades for directing genre-warping projects like Aim for the Top! Gunbuster, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Shin Godzilla have obscured an important fact — Hideaki Anno really knew how to draw.
A largely forgotten example of doujin anime, circa 1984.
Published in September, 1986, Combat Comic No. 6 provided readers with a mixture of military-themed comics, articles, and model kit features stretched across over 200 newsprint pages.