Over the years I've managed to accumulate a decent sized stack of anime magazines. I'm in the process of pulling out all my old junk and deciding what I should still keep and what I should toss, and this in this process I've managed to scrounge up nearly every anime magazine I've purchased over the years. All of these date from 1987 to 2000. I'll admit the internet has made anime magazines irrelevant in a lot of ways (Otaku USA is pretty great, though), but flipping through one of these old magazines is a lot like taking a look back at an earlier era of fandom.
When the first english language anime magazines came out in the 1987, specialized videos targeted at anime fans had yet to be released (AnimEigo's release of MADOX-01 wouldn't come until 1989) and as such most magazines devoted a lot of space to providing basic synopsis information so fans could have some understanding of the videos they were watching. As time went on most anime magazines began taking a more critical approach to anime, opposed to just a general informative method.
One thing I've found really difficult about attempting to date these old magazines is that most of them don't have a publication date. Mecha Press and Protoculture Addicts are the notable exception in this case, whereas V-Max has absolutely no discernable publication date (not even a friggin' copyright year). Anime UK has a similar problem, although oddly many of those issues have the month and year of publication in the letters section, of all places.
This is by no means a comprehensive list of english language anime magazines, just a brief record of what I've accumulated over the years.
Follow up:
Animag
One of the earliest efforts in the anime magazine publishing field (I'm not sure which came first, Animag or Anime-Zine), Animag's first issue was published in 1987. Early issues show the magazines intention as a professional publication, first and foremost. An early editor's piece writes about the magazines commitment to accuracy and much of the early issues I have are entirely composed of synopsis-style articles, but are generally well written and a step above typical fanzine quality.
The production values for the magazine are exceptional when you consider the time when they were released and the limited anime fanbase in the late 1980's; nice layouts, color pages, excellent cover art and the occasional full color pull outs even as early as the second issue. The first issue was published on a rough, newsprint like paper, although starting with issue 2 the quality dramatically improved.
Later issues retained the synopsis style for some articles, although they began including more traditional "feature" style articles alongside columns on manga (issue 7 covers a little known manga named Ranma 1/2) and mecha technical articles. The last issue I have is #8, although Animag would go on to produce seven more issues until it's demise in 1992. Much of staff went over to Animerica magazine which started publication in November of that year.
Protoculture Addicts
Originally created as a Robotech fanzine out of Canada, Protoculture Addicts was approached after the release of the first issue by Robotech owners Harmony Gold and given two options: go official or shut down. Thus, after only one issue "the Robotech fanzine of the Quebec Quadrant" became the official North American Robotech magazine. Protoculture Addicts ran ten issues focused on Robotech and with issue 11 became a general anime magazine. These early issues have a rather unprofessional charm about them, due in part to both the magazine's fanzine origins and the staff not being native English speakers.
Despite the Robotech focus, by the end of the official Robotech run it's clear they had been running out of things to say about the series and had already begun expanding to cover other anime and manga. These early issues were about the size of a comic book with rough, cheap feeling paper stock. The covers are color, but all internal pages are black and white.
A few years later Protoculture Addicts would join up with Dream Pod 9 (the guys behind Mecha Press, see below) and form Ianus Publications. Protoculture Addicts benefited from this merger by taking advantage of DP9's excellent graphic designers, and in the mid-teen issues Protoculture Addicts took on a larger format with improved layout and content. This layout style continued until recently, when Protoculture Addicts merged with the Anime News Network and a new magazine design was implemented.
Having since parted ways with Dream Pod 9, Protoculture Addicts is still published today making it the longest running english language anime publication. For those who are curious about their early issues, Protoculture Addicts now offers issues 1-10 as a downloadable PDF, although they do charge $9.99.
Anime UK/Anime FX
Anime UK started as a British fanzine, made the jump to professional publication and later went international with a name change to Anime FX. The early issues really show the magazine's fanzine roots, with a number of articles having noticeable errors or written in the first person. Also curious is the fact that nearly all the art in the earlier issues was drawn by the magazine's own artists, although I'm guessing that might have been because they had a hard time finding reproducible source material. After 17 issues, Anime UK was picked up for distribution in the US and restarted it's numbering. Issue 5 of this new series saw the magazine change its name to Anime FX.
Early issues had a heavy focus on synopsis articles; describing the basic plot and characters without a critical eye. Later on the synopsis approach was dropped in favor of a more traditional critical style. Other early articles included features on anime themed role-playing games, "girls and guns" manga and a roundup of different fanzines. The later issues of Anime UK/Anime FX really shine as excellent examples of anime journalism, a few typos still remain but by and large it dedicated itself to discussing anime in a mature, informed manner. Anime UK had a lot more charm and personality than most anime magazines I've seen, which I'd attribute to editor Helen McCarthy. McCarthy was very enthusiastic about presenting anime as a legitimate art to western audiences and this drive shows through in each issue.
Issues were published on a high quality, glossy stock of paper giving the magazine a very nice feel. The art throughout is of high quality, and the magazine went full color with the name change to Anime FX.
Anime UK was the first anime magazine I purchased as a budding anime fan and remains a favorite of mine today. Sadly, after issue of 12 the new series, Anime FX ceased production. I've never heard a concrete explanation as to why, but it seemed there was friction between McCarthy and her publisher. A number of British anime magazines followed in Anime FX's place, but none managed to meet the level of quality set by their predecessor.
V.Max
V.Max was never a favorite of mine and as such I only own three issues of it. Originally published by 'Newtype Press,' with Volume 2 Issue 1 publishing duties were taken over by games publisher R. Talsorian Games. The only difference this brought about was a few extra pages of role-playing game material added to the magazine, showing a similar cross over audience that Mecha Press also targeted. All role-playing game material was designed for use with R. Talsorian's games.
V.Max didn't bother with news, the meat of most issues was taken up by episode synopsis of series like Yu Yu Hakusho, Legend of Galactic Heroes and Gundam Wing. The rest of the content is split between short interviews, spotlights on anime or manga series, a modeling column and your typical anime/soundtrack/video game reviews. The pages are all black and white with competent, professional looking layouts.
I wish I knew more about the origins of V.Max, as it definitely has that 'fanzine-gone-pro' feel to it, especially in the editorials. Of the three issues I have, one editorial is about the racist connotation of the word 'japanimation' and another about how Sandy Frank nearly ruined anime in the U.S. forever. There's a nice variety in the anime and manga they cover, but the issues have a small page count and it as compelling as other magazines from the same era.
Mecha Press
First published in 1992, this Canadian magazine brought all aspects of mecha fandom together in one publication; anime, models, and tabletop gaming. Published by Ianus Publications, the guys behind Mecha Press would later go on to form Dream Pod 9. Each issue of Mecha Press (17 in all) focused on a particular mecha series (with a few exceptions, this was always anime like VOTOMS or Dougram), with other columns and features about tabletop games, model kit reviews and tips and other similar articles.
The production quality was good, despite not having color interior pages until later issue. The layouts were clean and well organized. The articles were of an overall high quality, although earlier issues suffered from poor editing. Most of the interior art (particularly line art) was done by the magazine's staff. Whats really interesting about Mecha Press is it's position as a cross-over publication, one that really wouldn't be able to exist today. At a time when mecha anime was at its peak of popularity in the U.S. and tabletop gaming hadn't yet been eclipsed by video games, a cross-over magazine like Mecha Press made a lot of sense.
After 17 issues, the Dream Pod 9 guys decided they wanted to focus on their own projects and broke off from Ianus Publications in 1995 to publish their own line of tabletop games. The Protoculture Addicts website offers 16 issues of Mecha Press to download in PDF format.
Animeco & Anime-zine
I only own one issue of each of these, so I don't know much about either magazine.
Animeco is the "Official Magazine of the Japanese Animation Society of Hawai'i," and definitely shows it's club origins despite being picked up for wider distribution. Alongside the regular articles and columns is a page with information about their Spring '97 show schedule and a short blurb about the society's anime radio show. Other articles include a piece about dubbing anime, a shopping guide to Shinjuku, as well as features on fanddubbing groups Seishun Shitemasu and Corn Pone Flicks.
There's also the regular stuff like anime, manga and soundtrack reviews. Despite the amateur feel, it's in full color on nice, glossy paper, although the page count is rather slim. It's a bit of a strange magazine, as it eschews the typical anime series coverage that is commonplace in all other anime magazines. I have no idea how many issues Animeco lasted, although the website of the publisher (Limelight Publications) is still around and sporadically updated.
Anime-Zine #2 shows a copyright date of 1987, which makes it one of the oldest English language anime magazines. The big features are a spread on Royal Space Force (Wings of Honneamise) and an episode synopsis of the third Starblazers TV series. Printed on rough newsprint in black and white, the production values aren't quite as nice as Animag which also came out about the same time.
The articles are competently written, including a column by Studio Proteus founder Toren Smith. There's a bit more variety compared to Animag, with a feature on Godzilla movies and a section for fanart. I'm not sure how long Anime-Zine ran for, although an older issue of Protoculture Addicts features an ad for three issues of the magazine, so I supposed at least that many.
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So there you go. Not a definitive look at english language anime magazines (I didn't talk about Animerica, which dominated the market for most of the 90's), but hopefully a glance at a few magazines you might have never heard of.
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