Evidence #34 - Early 2000's American Gunpla Brochures

So it's the start of the Christmas season of 2017, and what better way to make a post about Gundam model kits that were sold in the early 2000's to us Gundam hungry anime nerds at the time.

To give a brief lowdown on what and how Gundam was like and marketed in America roughly two decades ago, it was a slow trinkling affect that took a couple of years to gain momentum. Before Gundam Wing got Gundam noticed and marketed in early 2000 at major retail chains, it's only existence before was Kazuhisa Kondo Mobile Suit Gundam manga published by VIZ in 1999, and before that any publication of Gundam was mentioned in either ANIMAG or Animerica off and on. The first step to officially publishing Gundam came in 1990 from translator Fredrick Schoot. Schoot translated the original Gundam novel that Tomino wrote after the television series, which to him was going to be the ultimate Gundam story that never got made. Through all of these hard efforts, Gundam finally got some recognition from the popularity of Gundam Wing, and what lead to that would be a large amount of Gundam models to be sold at major retailers.

Bandai best idea to help promote these model kits would be to make it competitive where the more kits you buy and build, the greater chance to get recognized by becoming the ultimate Gundam Master or something. In this case, you earn ranks by going to the Gundam Official Website in order to register yourself and get your desired rank based on the model kits you've built. For its time, it was probably the best thing that Bandai could come up with in order to make Gunpla appealing in America. From what I can gather, you just submit your work towards your skill level for Bandai to send you a pin to reward your accomplishments in Gunpla building. These of course were promoted by the most lamest BADASS COMMERCIALS to get kids to buy these model kits, because you wanted to be cool in getting one!

What I have to show today is some of these little promos in model kits they put out. I've kept most of my booklets from my older kits as far as I know, but I think a lot of kids just threw them away and thought nothing of them. This one in particular comes from my Gelgoog Marine High Grade I got from Target (chances are it came from there) that 15 or so years later, I still have in my model kit box. 

It's funny how two (and soon to be three) of these retailers are out of business since this promotion event came out. My how the times have changed.

I have a few of these toys and model kits scattered around in boxes in my storage closet, which based on how much the figures go for new its best to hold onto them while you can. I also don't remember the Wing Zero Custom wings looking kinda reddish when I watched Endless Watlz so many years ago, but I guess when I do a rewatch of it, it should come back to me. Yes, you had the MS War card set, which I've got a few sets of those in a box with no one to play them with. My biggest regret is not getting that Zeon battleship set, which I saw that sucker complete at AWA 2017 for a whopping $100+!! Makes me wish I could've got all these figures from the discount bin of the already fading KB Toys at the time. Well, you live and learn I guess.

 Although this is a small post it's at least something. To sum up life events since my last post, I'm going to be done with college in a couple of weeks in getting my BS in Communication, I ended my engagement to my fiancee for reasons, and I've become more involved in a local Gundam club in South Carolina (which helped in the break up). I plan on doing a magazine scan by the new year while on Christmas break and figuring out job opportunities. So have a Merry Christmas to all the viewers of this site!!

Evidence #15: The ANIMAG Saga (Issue #8)

Sorry for the delay guys, but I do have a new piece of the past to show.

So I know its been a while (about 4 months, which is double than what I wanted to go for), and my only excuse this time is school, work and life (it’s the typical fallback excuse everyone gives these days, but it’s a solid one). I am finishing up this summer at my community college to get ready to enroll and get in student loan debt (hopefully not) at Anderson University in South Carolina. As for work I am doing a graphic design internship at my local newspaper for the summer, which is sweet sub-contracted work. Also, I have failed to mention that I put my spare efforts into the newest podcast my co-host and I have started, The Anime of Yesteryear Podcast, which has been going nicely since the beginning of the year. But, its high time I show you more publications of the past, so here we go.

I originally wanted to put this out about the middle or end of May, but held off because I was going to Animazement, which had someone who I have mentioned countless times when I post these issues. It was cool seeing Trish Ledoux and her husband Toshifumi Yoshida at this years con, which was another reason for me to harass them for autographs and catching up (since its been like 3 years since I last saw her.) I had her sign one of her old Animag publications back in the day, which you may know off hand who these damsels of destruction are… because THEY’RE THE LOVELY ANGELS DAMMIT!!!

Trish gives her thoughts on translation work back in the late 1980’s. Its funny how she makes a mention on “those” people who do translation work regarding to them as purist. I say its funny, because you got people likethese that are still out there. I guess something will never change. I had both Toshi and Trish sign this issue at the most recent Animazement.

Here is the synopsis for Holy Machine Beast SaiGuard (which we all knew later was Cybernetics Guardian from CPM). If you ever wanted to watch a dumb, forgetful and semi boring Koichi Ohata anime, this is it. And below that is animation news, which is whatever TV series were coming out in the later part of 1989 (I believe) and what US Renditions was going to put out, namely Gunbuster and Dangaio. If you have seen the past post on this website, about a good chunk of those magazine ads are for these two series from US Renditions. I still wanna get the rest of Dangaio on VHS to go with my USR vol. 1 copy.

Above are the write-ups for Dirty Pair and The Five Star Stories. I do own Project Eden and the OVA’s on VHS, but I have not seen Affair on Nolandia (which I have heard was the weakest of the animations, but could be wrong), which ill get around to watching one day. I have seen the first 2 of the OVA’s, which its just an enjoyable, incoherent roller coaster to watch (come to think of it, I think there was a call back to the mine cart chase from Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom in the first OVA. That and surfing on lava to get to the prison). They also do a very good write up on the world of Five Star Stories, since it is a rather unique and diverse universe to begin with. 

Here we got write ups on the Yotoden (aka Wrath of the Ninja), Hades Project Zeorymer and episode synopsis for Zeta Gundam. 

Here we got the Product watch, which I kinda want my hands on that SD Gundam Famicom game (not like I don’t have any to begin with). I know I have said this before, but it does need saying again, you kids need to stop complaining over anime being too high. I hate giving these “back in my day” speeches, but its true. They listed that Gunbuster and Dangaio are 35 bucks a tape, and that is for ONE FRIGGEN EPISODE!! Back then, that was as good as its gonna get. There is also an article on making a resin kit, which I am guessing back then, everyone needed help with that. 

This is a pretty interesting article by Fredrick Schodt on Go Nagai. It’s kinda sad that he didn’t get to ride a bike for long, but were not all perfect. I really wanna see these wedding invitations he made, especially about sexy flower women taking his bride away. Does anyone out there have a scan of this?

And of course, I end everything with product placement of 1989 for otakus. I don't think your ever going to see Kaneda's bike from Akira that low in todays ebay market. I would love to have that with the McFarlane Akira figures I own. 

And that concludes this segment of the blog. I know my intended goal is to do these once every other month, but with school (mostly) that put that on hold, and I was kinda lazy and preoccupied with other things. I guess you can't blame me for that too badly. I will shoot to try and get one out before I start university, but until then, I gotta work on holding onto that vision...