One of the books I picked up last year in Hyogo while I was visiting for the Yoshikazu Yasuhiko retrospective. I got this one from a junk shop more or less, but its full of great info from late 1981.

------------

Questions? Comments? Inquiries?

You can reach me @retroanimechris on X/Twitter/Bluesky and adoggoart@gmail.com or chrisdelabigne@gmail.com

-------------

Scanning services are available! Simply send your inquiry to any of the contacts above and I will get back to you in 24 hours at best. Discord is available by request.

-------------

If you would like to help me acquire similar texts or others, please consider donating!

https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/Madanglerpress

Coverage is as follows:

-Coverage on European white metal / pewter kits. While these kits and models didn't take off a strongly as say resin, Hobby Japan did extensive coverage on some of the best, both from large companies and smaller hobby/garage runs.

-Bandai's 1981 Elmeth (then called the Hermes), Bigro and Grabro models are shown with some additional fanfiction written about them from the builders.

-Takara's Dougram & Space Runaway Ideon kits are shown, primarily with some support from Kunio Okawara giving opinions and sponsored ads all through the book.

-Western films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alien are covered with 1/12 scale models made from white metal / pewter. Star Wars and Star Trek, especially The Empire Strikes Back, are covered kit wise.

-Lots of coverage on general plamo, including guns, planes, ships and D & D tabletop pieces.

-Soldier Blues by Motofumi Kobayashi, specifically from Act VIII titled "Waldner 555 (Part 2)" is covered. Soldier Blues was covered and serialized extensively in Hobby Japan in particular.

-Scenes from the 21st Annual Japan Plastic Model Show, held October 19th to the 20th of 1981 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Hall. A life sized RX-78 II Gundam was on display at Bandai's booth while Dougram also made appearances. As this is the December 1981 issue, many of the kits had already been released a month prior by November. All sorts of kits, including Kabuki dolls, were presented.

-Two tabletop games are included for free, mainly one that seems to be about the Battle of Midway and an alt-history WW2 German themed game.

-Tons of ads for recruitment for hobby groups, shops and build meets. Some are super unique and include adverts for Gundam doujinshi. A mecha newsletter, Lonely Soldier, was headed by the Hokkaido US Military Research Society aka Granada. Membership for this doujinshi was only 500 yen and the group, while small, held LARPs for military tactics.

Base +10, kryten39 +6

Thank you! Torrent please

Base +4

@fwefw2w you can download the direct ZIP here: https://archive.org/details/hobby-japan-no-148-december-1981

Base +10