Anime magazine history, Part 2: 1980
40 TV productions including Traider G7, Legendary God Giant Ideon, Baldios, Legend of Marine Snow, New Mighty Atom, Space Battleship Yamato III, and Tomorrow’s Joe 2.
18 feature films including Tomorrow’s Joe, Phoenix 2772, Toward the Terra, Be Forever Yamato, and Cyborg 009: Legend of the Super Galaxy.
1980 began with continuing expansion of anime on TV and cinema. Thanks to steady magazine coverage, anime creators were now known to the readership, and their next works were greeted with anticipation rather than surprise. A simple scan of magazine covers demonstrates where the momentum was strongest.
January
This month’s issue of OUT led with a Gundam cover story as the series concluded its first broadcast. It included these three pages of parody fan art, which sent quite a ripple through the community. Prior to this, nude character drawings were confined to doujinshi (fanzines), but now a barrier had been broken for all time. The sexuality of anime characters has been an undercurrent ever since.
February
March
Milestone: for the first time, six anime magazines are published in a single month.
April
April 10: Animation ’80
A showcase for anime feature films from early 1980, primarily Phoenix 2772 and Tomorrow’s Joe with a few others and some Disney titles being released in Japan. A few pages were devoted to contemporary TV anime along with an index of popular creators and their birthdays. Published by Shueisha as a spinoff of Roadshow magazine.
May 10: Otherworldly Fantasy Vol. 11, SF Anime Encyclopedia
A broad examination of SF anime and its context in world cinema. Contains interviews with prominent creators (including Keiko Tekyama, Leiji Matsumoto, and Osamu Tezuka), numerous articles on the state of the genre, extensive film lists from Japan and the rest of the world, and an index of 115 SF TV series up to early 1980. Published by Otherworldly Fantasy
May
May was the second month in which six titles were offered. Both Animage and Animec ran cover stories on Ideon, the next series by the creators of Mobile Suit Gundam.
June
If the final issue of Fantoche had been published on schedule, it would have appeared six months earlier. Its lateness probably speaks to the reason it did not continue after this 4-issue attempt to revive it.
July
July 10: TV Anime Battlefront / Personal Opinion: 17 Years in Anime
Noboru Ishiguro was a legend in the anime world, with a resume that probably outstripped anyone else’s. He got into the business as a designer and storyboard artist at the very beginning with Astro Boy and worked his way up to director from there. He got his name on everything from Space Battleship Yamato to Macross and countless others. (See his resume on Anime News Network here.)
This paperback was probably the first real-world autobiography of a life in anime, co-written by Ishiguro and Niroko Ohara. His main project in 1980 brought him back to his start with a color remake of Astro Boy for Tezuka Pro. Macross was still two years away. Click here to read the Yamato chapter from his book, which revealed behind-the-scenes stories that went on to become industry legends.
July 15: Fanroad magazine debuts
Part of Animec‘s goal in distinguishing itself from other anime magazines was to include fan-generated content and focus on fan activities. That effort was successful enough to spawn a quarterly spinoff magazine. Rather than promoting the latest anime titles or interviewing industry folk, the mission was to celebrate the fan lifestyle and sprinkle in some anime coverage on the side.
Its appearance made July the first month you could buy seven different anime magazines, though Monthly Animation was about to drop off the radar. It turned out that its more serious, academic approach did not appeal to enough readers to keep it going in what had become a very competitive environment. Being published on the 10th put it direct competition with the far more flashy Animage and The Anime, which would have been an uphill battle from the start.
August
September
September 25: Anime Poster Big Compendium
This is as good an example as any of the popularity of anime by the year 1980. Champion Graphic, an imprint of Akita Shoten, put together this substantial full-color collection of poster art from various anime productions dating back to the 60s. Leiji Matsumoto’s works opened the book with Yamato movie and promotional posters getting 10 pages of coverage.
October
In the first accidental (?) sync-up between the majors, they both ran cover stories on the Cyborg 009 movie Legend of the Super Galaxy.
November
November 5: Leiji Matsumoto Anime Fantasy World
Published by Kindaiegasha as a spinoff of The Anime, this was the first book dedicated to Matsumoto’s anime works with its main focus on Legend of Marine Snow, which was broadcast in August. It included a rare glimpse of his earlier anime series Danguard Ace and Starzingers and a chronological manga index up to the time of publishing.
December
Fun for Parents and Children, Terebi Anime Special
The Nippon Life Insurance Company apparently went on an interesting side quest in 1980 and published this 32-page manual when they got back. It’s a primer for the TV anime industry with an overview of broadcast history, the production process, contact info for your favorite voice actors, how-to tips, and more. It gave us a rare Yamato/Gundam collab on the cover, but neither got any special treatment inside.
See this publication from cover to cover here
At the end of 1980, six titles were holding strong. Despite two casualties (Monthly Animation and Quarterly Fantoche), the bandwagon was still rolling and two new participants would jump on in the next year.
Next time: making the pie bigger
Bonus: click here to see all the Roman Albums published by Tokuma Shoten through the end of 1980.