New Releases - 05/23

[Kiwi]

Gregorick provides us with PlayStation Power issue 22.

[kitsunebi]

This super-posh magazine is probably the highest quality mag I've ever owned, so far as paper quality and printing goes.  Every page was printed on paper like it was an expensive coffee table art book. 

Investigating further, it seems that Game Japan Quarter was sort of a special edition video game spin-off of Pachinko Kouryaku Magazine, a pachinko strategy mag which was published from 1987 to 2020 and has just short of 1000 issues.  Imagine that.  1000 issues of mags about how to drop little metal balls into holes. 

I hereby nominate a complete run of Pachinko Kouryaku Magazine to be Kiwi's next scanning project.  Get crackin', Kiwi!!!

Get Game Japan Quarter Vol.2 HERE

[Kiwi]

I hereby nominate a complete run of Pachinko Kouryaku Magazine to be Kiwi's next scanning project.  Get crackin', Kiwi!!!

Well, at two mags scanned per day that would only take a year and a half to complete BUT the cost of shipping those mothers out of Japan would probably amount to a decent sized mortgage!! 

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 90 is now available.

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 85 is now available.

[slider1983]

but it's still pretty amazing that such an unattractive character design became a sex symbol.  But then no one was paying attention to her face, I guess.

There was nothing wrong with her character design apart from the fact the toy makers interpreted her from the video games literally. For some reason the toy gives her ducky lips, what's going on there??? 

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 75 is now available.

[kitsunebi]

There was nothing wrong with her character design apart from the fact the toy makers interpreted her from the video games literally. For some reason the toy gives her ducky lips, what's going on there??? 

Well, I'm not defending the toy - it looks pretty bad, but to be fair:



I'd never really thought about it till just now, but I suspect that Lara's face is the reason she never caught on in Japan.  In all of my years cataloging Japanese mags, I've only ever seen one Japanese cover with Lara on it (unlike the hundreds in just about every other country in the world).  The Japanese ideal of beauty values a "small face," and although I may not be entirely sure what that entails, I think it's safe to say that the original design for Lara definitely doesn't have one. 

Also to be fair, the toys got better (as did Lara's character design in the games) as the years went on.  This is from just a couple of years later:

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 98 is now available.

[Kiwi]

AralDite provides us with Australian 360 issue 18.

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 51 is now available.

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 64 is now available.

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 15 is now available. Five issues left to scan of GunyenTony's amazing donated collection of mags...

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 106 is now available.

[Kiwi]

Dreamcast Magazine (JPN) issue 80 is now available. Three to go .....