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The One And Only Animerica Magazine


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PingSoni
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Joined: 05 Dec 2008
Posts: 195
Location: Lansing MI
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 8:34 am Reply with quote
I miss the old magazines. I cried when I received my final issue of Shojo Beat.
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AJ (LordNikon)



Joined: 14 Apr 2009
Posts: 518
Location: Kyoto
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 8:34 am Reply with quote
As an 81 year old man, and 80s fansubber, this is nostalgia piece is very depressing. It reminds me of how much industry has changed since I got tapes secret from my younger brother at Sunrise and made pirate tapes in 1987. If you told me future we can watch anime on phone I would think you crazier than Star Trek fan. I still have every issue of Animerica from when I moved to USA from Japan till they stopped publication.
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KrowRhogan



Joined: 07 Aug 2023
Posts: 61
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 9:03 am Reply with quote
I had isssues of Animerica. I also had issues of Protoculture Addicts. Remember that?
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marshmallowpie



Joined: 22 Sep 2009
Posts: 309
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 10:35 am Reply with quote
Good article. I'm too young to have read Animerica in its heyday, but I have a few issues I picked up at con in 2010, and every bit of every page is fascinating. It's amazing how quickly things changed.
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gordonfreeman1



Joined: 13 Nov 2023
Posts: 14
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 11:17 am Reply with quote
Loved Anime Insider, another popular magazine at the time. These magazines should all be digitised into publicly, globally accessible libraries for future generations to see. Some of the features, layout and general hijinks simply don't exist anymore or wouldn't work in an online select-your-own-article/short attention span format.
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animefan1238



Joined: 28 Nov 2006
Posts: 302
Location: Ma
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 11:35 am Reply with quote
Animerica came at me at the right time. I was starting to expand my knowledge of anime and wanted to see more than what was being shown on TV. It gave me so much information that I digested it as much as I could. I brought an issue with me on my class trip to Washington DC and when we stopped in NYC I bought my first ever box set because of a review from Animerica(The World of Narue). I eventually subscribed by asking my mom. I still have a few issues as keep sakes. It was a great magazine and opened the anime world to me.
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Gem-Bug



Joined: 10 Nov 2018
Posts: 1333
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 1:57 pm Reply with quote
Fun and nostalgic article, thanks! I personally never had any copies of Animerica, but I remember often going to the public library as a teen in the early 00's and looking at various non-tv franchise manga(Guyver, Mermaid Forest, Ranma 1/2, Tokyo Pop's Sailor Moon, etc) and these often had ads for the magazine. Around this time I had also signed up to receive physical mail from Viz, and still have the Shop-By-Mail 2002 catalogue. This item, too, had ads for Animerica and all the little synopses for Anime/Manga old and new(at the time) and of every genre really opened up the world of Anime to me. I did end up collecting Anime Insider for a while, including the inaugural half-issue that didn't even have the finalized title yet.

On a related note, I'm certain that these fond memories went towards me choosing libraries as my career, and print media in general is very important to me.
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Key
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Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18507
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 4:20 pm Reply with quote
Good nostalgia piece. Pretty sure I still have several issues of Animerica laying around somewhere. (It was in its heyday when I first started getting big into buying anime DVDs, so I purchased it somewhat regularly as an add-on to my anime purchases.)
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NeoStrayCat



Joined: 14 Sep 2011
Posts: 634
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 4:23 pm Reply with quote
Yeah, I remember Animerica, even got one of those mini-issues they had that the article mentioned (Borders/WaldenBooks and Best Buy), but otherwise, it had a good run.
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Alan45
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Joined: 25 Aug 2010
Posts: 10037
Location: Virginia
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 6:31 pm Reply with quote
I still have a box of Animerica Magazine in storage. Too good to throw away and no one to take them. Cool Every thing from 1997 when I got into anime and a couple dozen back issues I picked up from various sources.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6497
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 7:12 pm Reply with quote
Oh man, I didn't become a anime fan until 2006 (meaning I didn't have access to the magazine like the one featured in the article), and as a history nerd, this is a nice way to show newer and younger anime fans that want to know what it was like to be a anime in the 90's, and the pre-Youtube/streaming and pre-social media era, this is how we got information about anime back then.

If you want to see more of these anime magazine in the US from decades ago, you can go to Anime Nostalgia Bomb (created by Lance Heiskell, who used to worked at Funimation). He has scans of Animerica, Animag, Anime Insider, Mixx Zine, Protoculture Addicts, etc... These are perfect time capsule of North American/US anime fans in the 90's.

Again, great nostalgic article and a great way to teach younger and newer anime fans about the history of North American anime fandom, and how we got information about anime/manga back before social media, and streaming helped anime where it is today in the US.
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Triltaison



Joined: 03 Jul 2011
Posts: 799
PostPosted: Fri Mar 22, 2024 8:21 pm Reply with quote
Still planning to try and complete my set. I only have a few issues here and there, but I've been working on actually completing several of the periodicals from that era because I love them so. The letters to the editor, news reports, and everything just make me smile.

I've completed Manga Vizion (remember that one?), Animerica Extra, Shojo Beat, and Dark Horse's Super Manga Blast. Just missing two issues from Pulp and a handful of the final issues of Shonen Jump. Animerica is next on my list to start tracking down, actually. Protoculture Addicts, too.

But seriously. If anyone has some of these laying around, dig out an issue and laugh at the time capsule in the reader letters. I was reading some of my old issues a few months back, and came across a lovely editor response explaining how they appreciated that the reader was really hopeful Dragonball would come out in English soon but that Viz didn't think it would do well in a Western market. Another fun one was an upcoming spotlight on Evangelion with early and inaccurate information (I think Asuka was listed as the main character and was labeled as Rei iirc), back when it was still thought to be a standard mecha. I also liked the one complaining about the speed with which Ranma 1/2 was coming out, predicting that it would take years to finally complete (which it did, like 20 years ago). I had a ton of fun reading those things.
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nyaa



Joined: 27 Oct 2022
Posts: 160
PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2024 12:25 am Reply with quote
I have most of those mini issues you could get at Best Buy but my thing was NewType USA. I have all but 2 or 3 issues that were published. I also have a big collection of Rightstuf catalogs.
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Mongoose



Joined: 21 Jun 2019
Posts: 6
PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2024 1:11 am Reply with quote
I used to buy Animerica, Anime Insider, and Newtype. I remember Animerica as having the better articles, but I think Anime Insider had last man standing, which I truly enjoyed. I was very sad when they all stopped publishing.
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kgw



Joined: 22 Jul 2004
Posts: 1201
Location: Spain, EU
PostPosted: Sat Mar 23, 2024 10:47 am Reply with quote
KrowRhogan wrote:
I had isssues of Animerica. I also had issues of Protoculture Addicts. Remember that?
Oh, man, I don't know how they managed to reach over here, but I still got a couple issues of PA and Animerica (at my parents' house).

Maybe you don't get it inside the US, but for those of us outside the US, Animerica (and Anime UK) was the lifeline for European otakus who didn't speak a word of Japanese. So much so that every fanzine basically photocopied and translated their pieces. Without bothering to credit the source, of course.

And it also had its problems, because while in Europe the big hits were Dragon Ball and Saint Seiya (or Captain Tsubasa), Animerica didn't really care about them. But it was the closest we had to knowing what would happen in Japan, or unknown new series...
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