Recently I came across a
Laputa Roman Album at one of those anime con swap meets that have
become all the rage as anime fans realize they have too much stuff
and not enough shelves. The Roman Album was in good shape and was
reasonably priced. During the purchase I remarked to the vendor,
"it's not often I see Roman Albums for sale these days."
The reply I received was enlightening.
"What's a Roman Album?"
And at first I'm dumbstruck
by the passage of time, that here in 2018 we can be two or three
iterations down the line of Western anime fandom from when Tokuma
Shoten's Roman Albums weren't just ubiquitous, but absolutely crucial
references that were sometimes the only primary sources we had for
solid information on anime TV shows and films. And then I took a step
back and flipped that question around on myself. What IS a Roman
Album? How many of them were there? Why were they published and when
did they go out of print? And why were they called "Roman
Albums," anyway?
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| Roman Albums 1-4 |
For anime nerds of my
generation they were always just there; solid, dust-jacketed bastions
of anime knowledge either shelved comfortably at home or gleaming
proudly in the exhibitor hall lights at local fantasy-fair dealers
tables or stocked in the "Japanimation" section of our
neighborhood comic shops next to Robotech Art Book I or that big
Macross Perfect Memory book we regret not buying. We never gave much
thought to why, exactly, there was a color illustrated guide to Minky
Momo or My Youth In Arcadia, in much the same way we accepted the
existence of "anime comics," Animage, Animec, and Animedia
magazines and whatever a "mook" was supposed to be when it
wasn't being an insult. What we did know was that these artifacts,
like the cartoons themselves, were evidence of a vast ecosystem of
Japanese animation interest that lay somewhere beyond the horizon, a
universe of cartoons we desperately wanted to immerse ourselves in.
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| Roman Albums 5-7 |
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| Roman Albums 8-10 |
Roman Album publisher Tokuma
Shoten began as the book arm of Asahi Performing Arts Publishing back
in 1961. By 1978 Tokuma Shoten, already having success with the
children's magazine "TV Land", realized the anime boom was
in effect and jumped on that bandwagon with both feet, rolling out
what would become the longest running anime magazine Animage in July
of that year. Tokuma Shoten later bankrolled the anime productions
Nausicaa (you might have read Miyazaki's Nausicaa manga in the back
of Animage) and Legend Of The Galactic Heroes, they financed a studio
you might know as Ghibli and the Streamline Pictures dub of Laputa
and Castle Of Cagliostro, and they partnered with Disney to get
Ghibli films into American theaters and home video outlets.
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| Roman Albums 11-14 |
"TV Land,"
however, would be the genesis ofロマンアルバム. The first Roman Album
was a 1977 TV Land "Special Edition" all about current
anime blockbuster Space Battleship Yamato. Selling 400,000 copies,
the Space Battleship Yamato Roman Album not only inspired Tokuma
Shoten to start publishing Animage, but to continue with a whole
series of Roman Albums. Tokuma Shoten would eventually lose the "TV
Land Special" cover text, replacing it with "Animage
special" branding, because cross promotional marketing is where
it's at.
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| Roman Albums 15-17 |
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| Roman Albums 18-21 |
Occupying a strange, liminal
publishing space between books and magazines, Roman Albums carried a
mix of B&W and color illustrations, scene-by-scene episode
guides, color poster and sticker inserts, and the occasional
flexi-disc. Interviews with the creative staff were mixed with
character and mechanical designs at every stage of the process, and
rest assured if the anime series featured a shower scene or a panty
shot, Roman Album was there to capture it for posterity, because home
video wasn't a thing yet. Theme songs would be presented as sheet
music and voice talent would get biographical pieces, interviews and
photo spreads.
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| Roman Album 27 (Babel 2) with flexi-disc |
A healthy use of English text as design elements
offered a tantalizing bit of comprehension for Western readers. Early
Roman Albums carried the "magazine" aspect so far as to
feature advertising on the back cover, but later editions were more
book-like with dust jackets illustrated front and back. Page sizes
varied but eventually standardized at the A4 size (8.27 x 11.69) with
page counts that could swell to over 200 pages for some shows.
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| Roman Albums 22-24 |
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| Roman Albums 25-28 |
To our 1980s anime nerd
eyes, Roman Albums were the authoritative final word on the whole
world of what we then called "Japanimation," that if it
wasn't in a Roman Album (or, say, a This Is Animation book or an
Animec special) then it simply didn't exist. The unbelievable truth,
however, is that there are vast empty spaces in the Roman Album
history of anime, whole fields of anime research that Tokuma Shoten
just didn't feel like talking about. There isn't a Macross Roman
Album. There aren't Roman Albums for Lupin III or Gatchaman. BrygarJ9-I and Baxingar J9-II get Roman Albums while Sasuraigar J9-III is
ignored. Early 80s hits like Orguss, Cobra and Cat's Eye are
neglected and the absence of later 80s hits like Fist Of The North
Star and Saint Seiya is downright odd. Dirty Pair? No. Crusher Joe?
No. There are Roman Albums for the 1979 Gundam TV series and films
but past that, Roman Album is silent. There's a Minky Momo Roman
Album, but not a Creamy Mami or Magical Emi or Pastel Yumi. Heck,
there isn't even one Urusei Yatsura Roman Album, one of the larger
holes in the Roman Album's far from complete coverage of the field.
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| Roman Albums 29-32 |
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| Roman Albums 33-36 |
On the other hand, Tokuma
Shoten did spend valuable Roman Album pages on deep cuts like
Prehistoric Misbehaving Boy Kum Kum, the Tezuka telefilms Marine
Express and Bander's Book, and the wonderfully named "Poems Of Baseball Madness: North Wolf South Tiger." Rights issues,
personality clashes, a determination on the part of Tokuma Shoten to
promote Tokuma Shoten-connected properties, who knows how these
publishing decisions were made? Even with a whimsical and possibly
biased publication strategy, the Roman Album library remains a vital
resource. And yes, they're still publishing the occasional Roman
Album, mostly covering Ghibli films, because Tokuma Shoten looks out
for Tokuma Shoten, baby.
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| Roman Albums 37-39 |
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| Roman Albums 40-43 |
And why WERE they called "Roman Albums?"
Well, an album, of course, is a collection of text, musical
compositions, or images, like a record album or a photo album. The
"Roman" part is supposedly shorthand for "Romance
Adventure", the "romance" part being used in the
literary sense of "a narrative genre that includes a mysterious,
adventurous, or spiritual storyline involving bravery and strong
values." Tadao Nagahama's Voltes V, Daimos, and Combattler V
would similarly be described as a "Robot Romance Trilogy",
with only Daimos featuring "romance" in the "boy meets
girl" sense. All three of these series would, of course,
receive Roman Albums.
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| Roman Albums 44-47 |
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| Roman Albums 48-50 |
The growing Western interest
in anime, and the 1980s comic con/comic shop distribution networks
built to sell us comics, model kits, and other fannish merchandise,
meant Roman Albums could and did find homes with American anime fans.
And sure, you might never see a Horus, Prince Of The Sun or a Getter
Robo or a Tekkaman over here, but Be Forever Yamato Roman Album
number 36 was seemingly available everywhere to anime fandom circa
1986. Was there a glut of Be Forever Yamato Roman Albums in
somebody's Jinbucho warehouse? Did Tokuma Shoten overestimate the
Japanese public's demand for this particular symbol of the anime
boom's high water mark, and pass the overstock on to a North America
suddenly hungry for big-eyed Japanese cartoon characters? Did someone
mistakenly add a zero to an overseas shipping invoice? Who knows. BFY
RA 36 went from prized to pedestrian fairly quickly as Star Blazers
became unfashionable compared to Bubblegum Crisis and other icons of
the OVA age. You can still find Roman Albums from Be Forever Yamato and other anime films and TV shows cheap
– in Japan. Or perhaps at the occasional anime convention swap
meet... if I don't find them first!
-Dave Merrill
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| Roman Albums 51-54 |
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| Roman Albums 55-58 |
Roman Albums 1-70:
1. Space Battleship Yamato
2. Cyborg 009
3. Rainbow Soldier Robin
4. Devilman
5. Tiger Mask
6. Super Jetter
7. Astro Boy
8. Raideen
9. Mazinger Z
10. Kamui
11. Arrivederci Yamato
12. Bander's Book
13. Tomorrow's Joe
14. Voltes V
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| Roman Albums 59-62 |
15. UFO Robo Grandizer
16. Combattler V
17. Eight Man
18. Danguard Ace
19. Heidi
20. Fighting General Daimos
21. Zanbot 3
22. Treasure Island
23. Triton
24. Galaxy Express 999 film
25. Marine Express
26. Adventure Of Gamba
27. Babel II
28. Shotaro Ishinomori Works
29. Daitarn 3
30. Captain Harlock
31. Space Battleship Yamato
2
32. Getter Robo / G
33. Poems Of Baseball Madness: North Wolf South Tiger
34. Hurricane Polimar
35. Mobile Suit Gundam
36. Be Forever Yamato
37. Tekkaman
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| Roman Albums 63-66 |
38. Marco Polo
39. Cyborg 009 Legend Of
Super Galaxy
40. Cutey Honey
41. Kum Kum
42. Mobile Suit Gundam I
43. Space Battleship Yamato
III
44. Mobile Suit Gundam II
45. Adieu Galaxy Express
46. Future Boy Conan
47. Baldios
48. Ideon TV
49. Queen Millenia film
50. Mobile Suit Gundam III
51. A Contract Be Invoked
The Ideon
52. My Youth In Arcadia
53. Yamato Perfect Manual 1
54. Yamato Perfect Manual 2
55. God Mars tv/movie
56. Final Yamato
57. Xabungle
58. Minky Momo
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| Roman Albums 67-70 |
59. Bryger/Brygar/Braiger
60. Horus Prince Of The Sun
61. Nausicaa
62. Dunbine
63. Votoms
64. Baxingar
65. Goshogun Etranger
66. Arion
67. SPT Layzner
68. Laputa
69. Totoro
70. Kiki's Delivery Service
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| Roman Album 43's Special Area |
