A.T. Stories manga
Futabasha Action Comics
May 28, 2005
Story by Masaaki Okajima, Illustrated by Yoshihiro Sono
Based on Armored Trooper Votoms by Hajime Yatate and Ryosuke Takahashi
Futabasha is one of many Japanese publishers who adopted the term “mook” as a portmanteau of “magazine” and “book,” and used the format for their long-running “Futabasha Curiosity Book” series. Volume 73 of that series (October 2001) was titled Great Mechanics, and focused on three major mecha anime shows from Sunrise: Gundam, Dunbine, and Votoms. It caught on quickly and settled into quarterly publication, spawning a total of 23 volumes up to the end of 2006.
From there, it spun off into a quarterly magazine titled Great Mechanics DX in 2007, then expanded into Great Mechanics G in 2013. It continues under that name to this day, serving devotees of both new and classic anime mecha.
Great Mechanics Vol. 11 (Winter 2003) is where A.T. Stories began as a regular manga series by writer Masaaki Okajima and artist Yoshihiro Sono. Each chapter presented a vignette in the Votoms universe, separate and distinct from the anime. Six episodes were collected into their own volume in May 2005 along with four longer chapters appearing for the first time.
The episodes from this book are presented below. New ones will be added monthly!
Masaaki Okajima
Freelance writer. Perhaps it’s the fate of someone who spent their adolescence in the 80s, but he has written many articles related to anime works of that era, mainly for Great Mechanics. He has a strong attachment to Armored Trooper Votoms in particular, and has contributed to such works as Votoms Alive (Ohta publishing, co-authored with Masahiko Asano and Shinsuke Nakajima) and Votoms Archive (published by Juso-Sha).
Yoshihiro Sono
Manga artist. He has been selected four times for Kodansha’s Monthly Afternoon Shiki Award, and has since published works in magazines such as Young Sunday (Shogakukan) and Monthly Shonen (Kodansha). He boasts a wide range of styles, from laid-back slapstick comedy to hard-hitting mecha.