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Famitsu Issue 1328 (May 29, 2014)
By kitsunebi
This issue's cover is by Tony Taka, a famous artist and character designer known just as well for his work in mainstream games like Sega's Shining series as he is for numerous adult manga and eroge. In stark contrast to America, Japan is more like Europe in this way - having some of their most famous and successful comics artists known for producing adult material.
This cover features Kirika Towa Alma, one of Taka's characters from Shining Resonance for the PS3. According to the Shining Wiki, "she is an elf who learns the song of magic which allows her to freely change the power of nature. However, she is a better healer than a damage dealer. She may seem withdrawn at first, but she is generally known to be a kind person."
But more importantly,
Tony Taka, ladies and gentlemen.👏
109 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1329 (June 5, 2014)
By kitsunebi
It's been a couple of days since the Dodgers won the World Series and Japan couldn't be happier. We even got to watch the end of game 5 during lunch at school. You know, kind of like how we got to watch space shuttle launches in American schools. It's that important, what with Shohei Ohtani being a national hero, and all. A lot of people may think he's so beloved because he's such a great baseball player. Others may think he's respected because he's so successful - the highest paid baseball player, EVER.
They're wrong, of course. The reason Ohtani is a hero is because he's somehow managed to overcome the crippling clumsiness that normally afflicts all Japanese males from puberty onward. The entire nation beams with pride as they watch him walk in a straight line without even once tripping and falling onto a female in a compromising position
or stumbling face first into the crotch of the nearest female wearing a short skirt
or accidentally taking a tumble and saving himself from falling by reaching out and grabbing two handfulls of boobs and clinging on for all he's worth BUT HE TOTALLY DIDN'T MEAN TO THO.
Yeah, he knows what I'm talking about.
95 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1332 (June 26, 2014)
By kitsunebi
Interesting how the cover article on Bloodborne starts immediately on page 2 (the inside front cover.) That space is usually reserved for what I assume are the most expensive ads (in addition to the cover, the first several pages of Famitsu are printed on thicker, glossier paper than the rest of the mag), so I'm guessing Sony paid a %#$!load of cash to get Famitsu to give that space up for the feature on Bloodborne.
214 pages
142 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1333 (July 3/10, 2014)
By kitsunebi
256 pages
Don't get too excited about the included supplement. Despite being trumpeted on the cover, it's just an "illustration card." What's that? Good question. It's basically a regular-page-sized poster printed on cardstock. What purpose it serves is a mystery. But hey, you're still getting a mag two and a half times the length and several bucks cheaper than any of the English-language mags published at the time, so what are you complaining about?
113 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1335 (July 17, 2014)
By kitsunebi
In what is probably a first for Famitsu, only a single game is reviewed this issue: Yokai Watch 2. I don't think Yokai Watch ever made much of a splash overseas, but I remember how intensely popular it was here for a time, so I wouldn't be surprised if all the other publishers shied away from releasing anything else that same week, since nothing would have been able to compete.
And speaking of things whose popularity ain't what it used to be, if you were wondering who those garishly dressed girls on the cover were, good luck figuring out how THIS got 17 million views:
130 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1336 (July 24, 2014)
By kitsunebi
I've been living in Japan for 16 years but I'm always reminded that I'll never truly fit in with the locals. Case in point, I've never owned a full-body waifu pillow or a boob-rest mousepad.
106 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1338 (August 7, 2014) (supplement included)
By kitsunebi
The included supplement is for Bandai's Net Carddass cards (unfortunate name...) which are trading cards bought in packs that are used to play online games. A meeting of the physical and digital worlds, and something I don't think ever caught on outside of Japan, though I could be wrong.
Today's trivia: The very first Pokemon cards, before the TCG existed, were produced by Carddass.
252 pages
108 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1340/1341 (August 21/28, 2014)
By kitsunebi
So big it's bursting out.
Actually, I was talking about the mag itself. A whopping 338 pages.
Of
SERIOUS.
GAMING.
JOURNALISM.
Like this girl's 3 sizes. Absolutely vital info needed to better understand the completely unrelated article about games these pics accompany.
Hey... It says she's from the very same prefecture I live in...🤔
148 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1342 (September 4, 2014)
By kitsunebi
I only read Famitsu for the hard-hitting gaming journalism.
146 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1343 (September 11, 2014)
By kitsunebi
Just another 276 pages of weekly content making Western mags look lazy.
145 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1344 (September 18/25, 2014)
By kitsunebi
This is one of those weird issues that was given two issue numbers (it's technically issues 1344 and 1345), and counting all pages individually, this issue weighs in at 316 pages (though the posters and comic spreads are left joined in the archive as they should be). That's the equivalent of 4 issues of Game Players, only with just one issue of Game Players' worth of ads. And since these double number issues are also allotted two weeks on newsstands as opposed to one, there were only 3 issues of Famitsu published in September 2014 for a total of 851 pages, though if we count the last issue from August as well (which was printed within 30 days of this issue) it's a total of 1,189 pages in a 30 day period. Which is just a few more pages than the 76 that Game Players churned out every month.
Why am I picking on Game Players? I'm not. I wish ALL mags I scanned were like Game Players. Scanning 1,189 pages per month versus 76 pages per month...that's one month of Famitsu vs. 15.6 months of Game Players. Imagine how many more issues I could scan if only they weren't SO. DAMN. LONG...😩
125 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1346 (October 2-9, 2014)
By kitsunebi
What caught my eye:
First of all, no one really needs an hourglass, but this one is pretty cool. Of course, you could easily go broke in Japan collecting all of the billions of Dragon Quest goods.
The other thing I noticed was a Vita game called Dungeon Travelers 2 that surely wasn't released in America.
Except that it was (this is probably common knowledge, but the last game system I owned was a PS2, so forgive my ignorance of anything released in the past 20 years).
Of course, Americans got it in censored form, duh. The T&A wasn't covered in enough murder and gore to make it past American censors, I guess.
AMERICA:
JAPAN:
What the hell is even happening here though? It's not actually porn, it just looks like it if you squint. Oh Japan. Why you so freaky?😅
135 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1347 (October 9, 2014)
By kitsunebi
Including the bonus "illustration card," this mag is 294 pages. That's 3 times as long as most USA/UK video game mags. And so, naturally, you would expect the filesize to be 3 times as big, as well, assuming the files are saved at similar pixel dimensions.
I sometimes wonder how people react to all of these Japanese mags where 200+ pages is the norm, not the exception. Do people get excited the mag is 300 pages, or annoyed that the file is on the large side?
Speaking for myself, I wouldn't mind if ALL mags were 80-pg weaklings, because it would mean a heck of a lot less work LOL. At least all the ones on my scan pile, at any rate. 😋
129 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1351 (November 6, 2014)
By kitsunebi
Notes on this issue:
There are certain concessions that must be made sometimes when dealing with digital mags when they can't be as easily manipulated by the reader as a physical mag can. Keeping a scan EXACTLY like the physical mag can sometimes render the digital version nearly unreadable. For example, a flip book, where half of the mag is printed upside starting from the back cover. The physical mag simply needs to be flipped over and rotated 180 degrees, and suddenly what used to be the last page is now the first page. But if you make the CBR match the physical mag exactly (as I once saw someone do), it means that you'll read half of the mag normally, but from the halfway point on, the pages will appear in the reverse order as well as being upside down. This would be IMPOSSIBLE to read, so when making a digital version of a flipbook, you have no choice but to have all the pages in the same orientation and either put both halves one after the other, or else release a separate CBR for each half.
I deal with this kind of manipulation ALL THE TIME with Japanese mags, whenever there's a manga section printed Japanese-style (with text printed vertically, meaning it's read from R-L.) In the physical mag, when you get to the first page of the manga section, there will be a note reminding you that it's actually the LAST page of the manga, and it will tell you to "flip to page ___" for the start of the manga. You then read backwards, R-L, and when you're finished with the manga, you flip forward again to the page following the manga section. But digital mags can't be manipulated so easily, so I reorder the pages, putting them in order - first page first, last page last (though I still warn people that when reading in 2-page view, they have to change to manga mode for facing pages to match correctly. This isn't just some random concession I decided upon - this is the exact same thing Japanese publishers have to do when they release official digital versions of their mags.
All of this is leading to THIS mag, which required a bit of a concession in favor of readability, which I will explain:
There is a 4-page-wide foldout that acts as part of the Assassin's Creed article. On one side of the foldout are 4 article pages, and on the other side is a single 4-page-wide poster. Since a CBR/PDF can't simulate a foldout, if I were to put the pages in the order they are printed in the mag, all facing pages from that point on would be incorrect. In order to keep facing pages oriented correctly, I had two choices: I could either insert 2 different blank pages before and after the foldout, which would keep the facing pages correct at the expense of throwing off the page numbers, or I could simply move the last page of the article in front of the foldout, which keeps facing pages and page numbers correct, except for the single page moved. I opted for the latter. The article pages are pretty modular, so the pages don't need to be read in a specific order to make sense. So what you will see if you're looking at the printed page numbers is:
106 (the first page of the article) (also pg106 of the scan) 115 (the last page of the article which has been moved forward) (pg107 of the scan) 4 unnumbered article pages from one side of the foldout (pgs 108-111) 4 unnumbered poster pages from the other side of the foldout (pgs 112-115) 116 (a new article begins) (pg 116 - from here on, the page numbers are once again aligned with pages of the scan.) If this is confusing you, don't worry about it. Just trust me that this is the best option for a digital release of this format. Whether reading in single page or double page mode, you'll be good to go.
I have also included a perfect join of the 4-page poster image at the end of the CBR, so as not to disrupt page numbering.
Also at the end of the CBR is a two sided...something...for Onee Chambara Z2. It's just an A4 sized...mini poster? Or something? Printed on thick cardboard? Dunno. I can't imagine a use for it. The table of contents calls it an "illustration card."
124 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1352 (November 13, 2014)
By kitsunebi
The manga section is read R-L, so your CBR reader must be set to Japanese/manga mode while reading that section in order for facing pages to be oriented correctly in two-page viewing mode. If you are only viewing a single page at a time, no adjustments are necessary.
123 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1353 (November 20, 2014)
By kitsunebi
The manga section is read R-L, so your CBR reader must be set to Japanese/manga mode when reading that section of the magazine in order for facing pages to be oriented correctly if viewing in two-page mode.
118 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1357 (December 18, 2014)
By kitsunebi
PlayStation 20th Anniversary issue
276 pages
The manga section is read R-L, so your CBR reader must be set to Japanese/manga mode during that section in order for facing pages to be oriented correctly if viewing in 2-page mode.
141 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1358 (December 25, 2014)
By kitsunebi
*The manga section in the middle is read R-L, so you need to set your CBR reader to Japanese/manga mode during that section in order for facing pages to be oriented correctly.
144 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1359/1360 (January 1/8/15, 2015)
By kitsunebi
It's been a while since we've had one of these double-number issues of Famitsu, so for anyone out there who's confused, here's a brief explanation. This is a single issue that is counted as two. The preceding issue is numbered 1358 (December 25, 2014), and the following issue is numbered 1361 (January 15, 2015), making this issue #1359/1360. This sort of thing happens 3 or 4 times per year. It doesn't mean that the double issues are double length. Sometimes they're longer than average, sometimes not (this issue is 280 pages, which isn't unusually long for Famitsu.)
What it DOES mean is that the staff took a vacation. As you can imagine, turning out over 1000 pages of magazine per month is nothing to sneeze at (especially when you consider that Western mags were typically producing less than 100 pages of content per month), so a few times per year, the staff would be...ALLOWED TO SLEEP!!! This particular mag came out around New Years, which is the biggest holiday in Japan. Everything shuts down for 5 days or so while everyone stays home to celebrate with their families (its closest Western equivalent would be Christmas.) So every year around this time, Famitsu releases a "double issue" so that its staff can enjoy the holiday like the rest of the country.
But since this is Famitsu WEEKLY, I guess they don't want to break the illusion by having less than 52 issues per year, so whenever they skip a week, they just add an extra issue number to make up for it. So since this issue was on newsstands for two weeks, it gets two issue numbers. Kind of dumb, and definitely a pain in the ass when I was first putting together the database, but that's the way it is. Now you know, and yadayadayadaYOJOE.
84 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1362 (January 22, 2015)
By kitsunebi
This magazine is 212 pages, which is fairly reasonable for Famitsu. They're usually a bit longer, though issues exceeding 300 pages aren't common. Considering they put this thing out on a weekly basis, it's still a remarkable amount of pages per month, sometimes entering quadruple digits.
But this issue also has an ad for a Monster Hunter strategy guide, which weighs in at 1,568 pages. That's more pages than an entire year's worth of any Western game mag published contemporaneously with this issue. That's pretty impressive, I'll give you that.
I'll also give you a slap on the face if you ever ask me to scan it. 🙂
94 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1363 (January 29, 2015)
By kitsunebi
Flipping through this issue, I noticed a baseball game and wondered if...yep, there he is. 3 years before heading to America and entering the MLB, look who it is - the currently-highest-paid (best?) player in the game, Mr. Shohei Ohtani:
I realize most of you are nerds who stay inside all day, hating sports and sports games alike. I happen to be a nerd who stays inside all day hating sports, but has been known to enjoy a sports game or two (back when I played games, that is.) This guy goes beyond sports star, though. He's a national hero here in Japan, and by far the biggest celebrity. Basically, he's the Japanese Taylor Swift. They let the kids here watch the final game of the World Series (which Ohtani's Dodgers won) in school like it was the moon landing or something.
In this game, he's still playing for the Nippon Ham Fighters. Did I ever mention that Japanese sports teams have stupid names? Actually, the team name is "Fighters," but rather than name teams after the city they're in, they name them after whatever giant corporation owns the team. It's super-lame. So rather than the Sapporo Fighters, allowing people in Sapporo/Hokkaido to wear their hometown team's merch with pride, they have to basically be wearing an advertisement for Nippon Ham, a giant meat/food corporation. Plus, when you say it out loud, it sounds like they fight ham.
102 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1364 (February 5, 2015)
By kitsunebi
276 pages. Includes a review catalogue reprinting all 123 cross-reviews (the 4-person review format which EGM copied from Famitsu) which appeared in the second half of 2014.
106 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1365 (February 12, 2015)
By kitsunebi
I had a certain song playing through my head while flipping through this mag, looking for my random "about this file" comment. The version on Youtube is from an older version of the 5th grade elementary school English textbooks, and has been updated for the newer ones with new music and lyrics (same refrain and melody, though), but the newer version isn't on Youtube, so far as I know. But it's ironic? fitting? that the song (Yokoso! Welcome to Japan) was stuck in my head when I came across a page featuring this toy:
A twin-barrel battleship gun emplacement...that couldn't be more Japanese if it tried. I think foreigners who have never been to Japan watch some anime or some wacky Japanese commercials or whatever and think that Japan must be some zany place fully of quirky people doing quirky things like they saw once on a game show or in a video of an idol concert in Akihabara or something. But it's actually a really quiet, ordinary place.
Except for the cuteness. Everywhere you look, CUTE CUTE CUTE. The kawaii aesthetic is everywhere. Please observe exhibit A, a collection of roadside construction barriers.
So why not make cute anthropomorphic guns? If you absolutely positively HAD to be shot out of the sky, wouldn't you prefer it be by something adorable?
94 downloads
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Famitsu Issue 1367 (February 26, 2015)
By kitsunebi
So it seems the editors of Famitsu thought that people would like to see Persona 5 on the cover. I mean, sure - on a NORMAL day, that might be the case. But how they decided to go with Persona 5 when they had this in the same issue, will forever be a mystery:
This is Tsuri Bit. Which means "fishing bit." Note the fishing rods? Wikipedia tells me that this jpop idol group formed out of a desire to sing, dance...and fish.
Their concept:
You can't even make this stuff up.
Based on views, this seems to be their biggest hit, from around the time this magazine came out (the song's title is "I'm going to dance, fish" presumably meaning "I'm going to dance and fish," or maybe "I'm going to dance, then fish" and not someone addressing a fish and telling it that they're going to dance. Though I suppose it could be that...)
102 downloads
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