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Many Magazines 1: Archetype (Vol.2)

13.09.2024

Welcome to Many Magazines! The series were I try to showcase Japanese magazines and infer their contents and or vision with the editions I own. Ideally in context of the (sub-)culture they are part of, of which my knowledge probably is limited.

Introduction

Today, for our first installment, we will shine a light on volume 2 of the Archetype magazine. Released in december 2023 at the 146th Comitia convention, it is a fanzine published by the circle Cumulist and describes itself as a creative media magazine. At the time of writing it's the latest intallment of the short run it has so far which started back in Spetember 2022.

We'll first go over the where, who and when the magazine entails. Since I assume that most of you we're able to experience 2023 first hand, even if not under the lense of 2020s Otaku culture which I'll examine further as this post goes on, I'll start with where it released, as said above that would be the Comitia 146.

The Comitia started back in the 80s, a convention with a simple premise: only allowing sale of original works/doujinshi at various locations in Japan. It's 146th incarnation being the place where the second volume first saw the light of day at a little vendor stand. As a consequence all content of the magizine is original beginning with the cover featuring the OCs of the respective artists (being used as their pfps even), later featuring manga not based on any preexisting work and cumulating in the CD bundled.

While we should now have a tenous grasp of where it released, we still don't know who did. For that reason I'll now talk about the cumulist circle and its seemingly sole member cosgaso.

Cosgaso has a portfolio featuring a variety of illustrations and graphic designs made for their own magazines published under the cumulist circle or, as is mostly the case, comissioned for various artists, events or publications in the Japanese underground music scene. Their art has a distinct moe sensibilty that harkens back to the anime and VNs of the early 2000s until around the mid 2010s, while still feeling ddistinctly modern and polished with it being more subdued and bright in its colour palette. There are other artists who share these artistic sensibilities, as does Kokamumo for example. While interesting, I won't try to proclaim an artiistic genre in this post; we should instead be moving on toward the content we seek.

Content

While the picture above unfortunately is incomplete we can still make use of it and create a table of contents:

1. Character file: Alpha Uyu
2. Bizarre Investigation Club - by shigaruru
3. Magical Rabbit Kumochy - by Kumichou and Kunoichi Kazuhito
4. The Bishoujo Extinction City and the Denpa Girl -by Kaimen Nasuka/nazca
5. Inexpensively Starry Landscape Shooting - by Machikadonokoi
6. The world of self made tapes - by Kyougen
7. BofB fullcomposite levitation X qhismash
8. Appendix Information
9. Creator Profile

On the back of the cover there is an ad for the VTuber Erimo Kudryavka starting leading into the table of contents

Character file: Alpha Uyu

Across the Tokyo area stickers are placed featuring a character named Alpha Uyu of the "Tokyo Fuuki " or roughly translated the "Tokyo Fuuki/Moral Comittee". As Alpha Uyu is presented as their president she has design elements commonly associated with her role as seen in various school anime, such as an armband with the Kanji "Fuuki" printed on it and an overall charismatic, authoratative demenour. Some stickers have the catchphrase "Dame yo, zettai!" on them, meaning something along the lines of "Absolutely, don't do it!". One may wonder what all of this is about but it's best understood as an art project as the social media accounts show an affinity toward street art and the "comittee" does have it's own galeries set up garnering the attention of other outlets. The first article is an interview with her, or rather the artist responsible

The interview itself is a bit short spanning only one page and mostly features small questions and their answers, much can be inferred by the little introduction I give at the beginning, however there are still cute bits of additional information. That being listening to the music of Nujabes while walking for example or that she's made many friends overseas since starting her activities and wants to lay eyes on various countries. It even features her favourite places of Tokyo which include the ever famous Akihabara and Harajuku but also Nakano and Hachiouji. At the end she tells the reader that she'll do her best keeping morals in check even now, befitting her character.

The manga: Bizarre Investigation Club and Magical Rabbit Kumochy

Cover pages of the manga: Bizarre Investigation Club on the left, Magical Bunny Kumochy on the right

I will only skim over the manga because I don't want to give a summary here which would in turn kind of defeat the purpose of reading them in the first place. In fact you can buy the first manga "Bizarre Investigation Club" digitally on booth but this sadly isn't the case for "Magical Rabbit Kumochy", there only is a sample provided on Twitter/X. If you want to read a self-published mystery manga with a price of 300yen however, and are able to do so in Japanese, now is your chance.

Unfortunately, I can't say much about the author of "Bizarre Investigation Club", that being shigaruru. They seem to be pretty active when self-publishing manga as this is most of their output. Paintings and illustrations by them also are available though, which do fit the modern moe artstyle I've been writing about some paragraphs earlier but otherwise they did attend the Comitia a couple of times in order to sell their manga.

While Magical Rabbit Kumochy isn't available outside the magazine it is confined in, I can say that it is a magical girl-esque series about a girl caring for rabbits and the hijinks she faces after transforming and even beforehand. The character design is provided by Kumichou and the manga is authored by Kunoichi Kazuhito who has most notably been involved in an anthology manga for Needy Streamer Overdose, a series Kumichou did design merch for by the way, and another one for Blue Archive (Blue Archive is very popular among Japanese Otaku audiences making up a sizable chunk of the last few Comiket, NSO is more niche but still has a solid standing over there and can be put in the wider context of denpa works that it was influenced by, as did Sayooshi for example, and represents by association). Credited neither in the table of contents or the magazine itself where the designer of the title logo Hiroi Hakumai.

Kumichou's character design and Kunoichi Kazuhito's artwork show a distinct avoidance of sharp edges and opt for an artstyle TV-tropes describes as Puni Plush, whith the characters having the disctinct childlike appearance this entails. A well-known example of this artsytle also being "Lucky Star". This should be all I can saw about these two titles currently :/

The Bishoujo Extinction City and the Denpa Girl

Following the manga an essay by Kaimen Nasuka takes stage. Nasuka, more well known under the online alias nazca, is leader of another doujin circle called "Moeken" which is a shortening of their previous name "Osaka Daigaku Moe Kenkyuukai" loosely translating to "Osaka University Moe Research Club" also publishing the moeroot magazine which I'll take a look at after I finished this article. As their full name might make you believe the essay is about Osaka or more specifically the Nipponbashi area, not to be confused with the Nihonbashi bridge written in the same Kanji. Nipponbashi is a place similar to Akihabara in that it is a gathering place for Otaku interests, featuring a melonbooks store, an Animate store, a Surugaya etc. I even took a look at in Google street view just to get more insight and saw a maid cafe in a brutalist building which sure is something but I can attest that Otaku interest lay at its centre.

In commederation nazca wrote a post on their blog announcing the essay adding context to this whole section and praising the magazine for its cool songs, lovely collaborators and cute illustrations which honestly has been a pretty wholesome read. Further insight into the Nipponbashi area is also given beginning with asking the reader if they've ever been there and saying that it's a nice place and describing it more thoroughly. We should now be able to take a look at the essay itself.

The first lines set the stage by describing the area I've described above, notably commenting on the apperance of K-Books, an used books store in the vacinity with a billboard that may be well past its prime.

The afforementioned billboard

As the essay goes on, making observations about the girls, may they be Dejiko or any other mascot, on these signs and how they slowly get fazed out, in Osaka that is, positing however they still are eternal as they live on in the imaginations of the onlookers. Describing the setting further, other billboards are showcased which lack the usual moe characters and cumulating in an exchange between author and character which is elaborated on in the comment as happening by electromagnatic radiation (this surprisingly is how the term denpa got its meaning to begin with). The moe mascots are described as stars, a comparison that leads into the next section thematically.

Inexpensively Starry Landscape Shooting

If you ever wanted to take a photograph of the night sky this might be the section for you. To be fair I don't really know if all of the advice apllies to places outside Japan but I'm pretty sure that one can rent all the equipment elsewhere.

Authored by Machikadonokoi, whose art we saw on the cover, the pages that follow are about the very thing that give this section its title. Giving the reader an instruction on how to photograph the night sky with proper equipment without losing all of their money doing so, peppered in are some cute illustrations made by the author themself.

The world of self made tapes

Some albums by Kyougen, as showcased at the end

A picture collection, additional information and the extras (content 7-9)

Conlusion