Dead English Language Anime Magazines: “Animenominous!”

Publisher: BDC Enterprises, Inc
Format: 210mm x 280mm (Standard Magazine Size)
Genre/Type: Anime, Manga, Japanese Music, Convention and Events Coverage
Years Active: 1990 – 1993
Issues Published: 5

Easily one of the more obscure anime magazines published in North America, with one of the stranger magazine title names, the origins of Animenominous! began as a loose meeting of fans on a Bulletin Board System (BBS, a kind of forum prior to the invention of HTML and web browsers) in 1987. Originally called Animation Anonymous, due to the fact many fans were closeted, the name was soon shorted to Animenominous. The small group managed to create five newsletters called Anime-E (Anime Electronic Mail) which were posted on various BBS. With the success of those five newsletters, and the success of other early anime magazines such as Anime-zine, Animag and Protoculture Addicts, some of the members decided bring the newsletter into comic book stores as an actual magazine.

Based in New Jersey, the magazine’s core staff included editor Jeff Thompson, composition and typesetting from Luke Menichelli, who previously did the layouts and composition for Anime-zine and the furry fandom zine Furtherance, and comic book artist Steve Rittler who did the covers for the magazine, created the magazine’s mascot, Animimi and had a comic running in the magazine called “Jasta”.

Issue one was published in the summer of 1990 and featured the rather obscure Rem Ayanokoji from “Dream Hunter Rem” on the cover. This character was from an Ero anime OVA from the mid 1980’s which was later reformatted into a mainstream OVA series. Running 40 pages long, the features and topics in the first issue were typical of the interests of many North American fans of that era; “Urusei Yatsura”, “Captain Harlock”, “Patlabor” and “Kimagure Orange Road”. Although several anime companies such as Streamline Pictures, AnimEigo and U.S. Renditions had begun selling video tapes to the small but dedicated fan base, the bulk of the articles in the magazine were in the format of episode and character synopses. This is because VHS fansubs had not become widespread (and were virtually non-existent), so most fans had to rely on synopses or take up Japanese to understand the untranslated tapes and laserdiscs they either bought or traded.

One of the more interesting articles in the first issue is one on the “Girls with Guns” genre, though the author, Stanley Jacobson, seems to include titles which are clearly not in that genre such as “Gall Force”. As per many articles in magazines of the period, there is some really questionable information stated as fact. The article claims that the title character from “Iczer 1” is male, which is blatantly untrue. However in the mook (magazine/book) “Iczer-One Mediamix Special Part 2”, it does state that the character Iczer-2 is male (judging for the anime OVA this seems to be untrue as well). Perhaps the author gleaned the information from that mook and got confused. Interestingly the article also makes mention of a very obscure Osamu Tezuka TV special from 1983 called “Prime Rose”. It’s kind of amazing that fans in the very early 1990’s would even know about these titles.

However the article from Animenominous! that caused the most controversy amongst fans was the one on “Kimagure Orange Road”. In the character profiles it erroneously stated that the lead character, Madoka Ayukawa, is half American and a “burakumin”, that is an outcast, the lowest of the low, a term derived from the Sengoku period (circa 1467 - 1600) when a caste system was introduced in Japan. While the author of the article, Walter Higgins, may have confused the fact Madoka was American due to the fact her sister was married to one, however claiming that Madoka is “burakumin” is just plain odd. The second issue corrected the “burakumin” label saying that it was meant to be “ai no ko” (literally love child), which back in the Showa era also colloquially could refer to a person of mixed race (which was not explained in the magazine's correction). The “Kimagure Orange Road” article certainly did not help the magazine. It was often cited by fans of the franchise as being error ridden, with some who believed that due to this fact, the writing in the magazine wasn’t to be trusted. The first issue also contained a fantastic bibliography and filmography (up to 1984) of Osamu Tezuka who had died in 1989.

Rounding out the magazine is a six page comic called “Jasta” by Steve Rittler. It follows the adventures of a German World War I fighter pilot named Rupert Volsung who ends up in another dimension after flying through a vortex. There he saves a young female pilot from being killed by two spacecraft and finds himself in the midst of an intergalactic war. While it is very much stylised “anime art” of the era, the comic is relatively original and quite interesting. As the story progresses we are giving a lot of the backstory to the world Rupert has ended up in, obviously inspired from “Gall Force” with heavy influences from Leiji Matsumoto’s work. Unfortunately the comic disappeared from the magazine by the fourth issue. As I previously mentioned, Rittler supplied the magazine with most of its cover artwork. My favourite of his would be the second issue which featured the cast of “Ranma ½” on the front cover and on the back cover all of them transformed after they had been splashed by water.

The next three issues followed on in three to six month gaps. These issues had a mix of anime titles which were quite popular with fans and some more obscure titles not covered in other magazines of the era such as “Blue Sonnet”, “Galaxy Express 999”, “Cutey Honey” and “City Hunter”. Issue two also included an excellent article on Roman Album mooks including a list of Roman Albums published to date and a CD review column which become a regular feature. Issue two also included the first letters to the editor column. Most of the letters were quite positive about anime and the magazine itself, however one Australian, Ken Stone, was rather negative about sever popular titles. According to him “Dunbine” and “Gundam” were both “major wastes of space” and “Dirty Pair wasn’t that great”. Yeah, righty-o Ken. It’s always interesting to see who wrote into magazines like this and what fandom was like during early eras of fandom. However the only name of note I spotted in this magazine was Tim Eldred who is probably the leading English language source on “Star Blazers” and “Yamato” and previously worked for the franchise's US arm, Voyager Entertainment.

Speaking of which, issue two also had a “Yamato” article with author lamenting that North American fans no longer followed the franchise for a fair chunk of it's length. But the lack of fandom engagement with the franchise was to be expected as no anime had been produced since 1983. By issue three, a news section was included. However as with a many early anime magazines in English, a lot of the material presented as news was a bit suspect. One news article erroneously attributes the film “Only Yesterday” as being one directed by Hayao Miyazaki, another news article suggests “Nadia of the Mysterious Seas” would be getting an OVAs series. The magazine also stated that they would have an interview with Kenichi Sonoda in the following issue (with Animecon ’91 around the corner, which he was a guest of), however this did not eventuate. Other articles of note in the last couple of issues of the magazine include one on “My Neighbour Totoro”, an article recommending anime to beginners (bizarrely absent in most anime magazines of the era), a write up on the first big anime convention in the US, Animecon ’91, and one on “Gatchaman”.

The “Gatchaman” article is pretty extensive, running 16 pages long, covering not only the original series but the two follow up TV series; “Gatchaman II” and “Gatchaman F”. But the article also contains the author’s hilarious laundry list of “problems” she had with the franchise such as Jun’s supposedly bad haircut, the “bad” animation in the first 20 episodes, the fact the Science Ninja Team wear the same clothes all the time, the children in the show are apparently drawn “ugly” and the fact Berg Katse’s personality is all over the shop.

Issue five, the final issue, was delayed by almost two years. While the magazine had by this time expanded to 52 pages, it was apparent from the editorial that things had gone quite badly for the magazine in that time. Steve Rittler had already left the magazine by the time issue four was published to work on his own comic book projects. Luke Menichelli had also left the magazine which meant that Jeff Thompson was running the entire magazine by himself. Not helping things was the fact the magazine had moved address, but all of their mail hadn’t been redirected and a lot of it had got lost. Thompson promised that a sixth issue would follow as soon as he could replace Menichelli and Rittler, however that sixth issue never materialised. As far as I can figure out, the magazine still attended anime conventions in the US with tables in the dealer’s room or Thompson as a guest representing the magazine until at least late 1994.

Jeff Thompson would later work in the emerging US anime video distribution industry, first as a freelance video box designer then as an employee of the Right Stuf where he edited the famed paper catalogue for the company as well as working a producer on many of their English language adaptations of anime. He was also instrumental in helping start one of the biggest anime conventions in the US, Otakon, in Baltimore, Maryland. Sadly Jeff died in 2006, leaving large shoes to fill at the Right Stuf. Steve Rittler went on to illustrate the comic “Morrigan” in 1993. I think this comic didn’t get beyond one issue and Steve doesn’t seem to have worked on anything else after this. After Animenominous!, Luke Menichelli seems to have disappeared into the ether in terms of participation in fandom.

As I said at the beginning of this post, Animenominous! has to be the most obscure of all English language anime magazines published in North America. Back in the very early 2000's, it took me several years of searching to find all five issues. I found the debut issue via a bookstore in the UK and a few other issues from less well known online comic book shops which no longer exist. Currently the only issue I can find for sale is the third issue on eBay, selling for US$11. Issue four can be found on the Internet Archive. Due to the many errors in the magazine (well, not a great deal, but enough to be of a concern) and the fact you can easily get the information elsewhere, this is probably not a magazine that’s essential for most people’s collection. Unless of course you’re like me and enjoy collecting these English language oddities. However Steve Rittler’s art is quite fun and is easily one of the best elements of the magazine. It is a real shame though that a lot of these early anime magazines are lost to time and forgotten by anime fandom as whole, even to those who archive and document early anime fandom.