Japan Magazines

Files From Subcategories

1. 

   Famitsu Issue 1315 (February 27, 2014) (supplement included)

   By kitsunebi

   236 pgs including a 32 page "PlayStation Hardware Catalog" supplement featuring every variation of PlayStation console hardware ever produced in Japan prior to the PS4 (good lord, so many PSPs....)
   

   33 downloads

   0 comments

   Submitted Wednesday at 12:59 AM

2. 

   Famitsu Issue 1316 (March 6, 2014) (supplement included)

   By kitsunebi

   The mag itself is 262 pages, and there's a 44 page PS4 supplement included for a grand total of 306 pages.
   

   53 downloads

   0 comments

   Submitted March 28

3. 

   Famitsu Issue 1394 (September 3, 2015)

   By kitsunebi

   236 pgs
   Supplement included
   This is (I believe) the most recent of any mag I've ever owned.  It goes without saying that I've never played any of the games within.  For some people, this mag is 10 years old.  For me, it's 20 years too new.
   

   62 downloads

   0 comments

   Updated March 24

4. 

   Famitsu Issue 1392/1393 (August 20/27, 2015)

   By kitsunebi

   268 pgs
   Fun fact: Although I scanned and edited this file in 2020 (couldn't upload it here due to the cutoff date), this was actually the very first magazine I ever (test) scanned with my first ADF scanner, way back in 2016.
   Debinding mags is a step that deters MANY a potential scanner.  People just have a hard time wrapping their brains around the concept that "to preserve you must destroy."  I eased my way in by debinding THIS mag to break in my (then) brand new ADF scanner, since I had two copies of it, so destroying one still left me with one intact.  I didn't scan the entire issue at the time, just the first 10 pages or so, and I later scanned the entire thing from scratch, which is what you'll get if you download this file.  But this mag popped my debinding cherry.  
   Now, of course, I'll debind anything that moves without batting an eye LOL.  And that extra copy I had of this issue?  Yeah, once this scan was complete, I just tossed that extra mag into the recycling as well.  Who needs it?  Isn't that the whole point of making a scan?
   What I'm saying is, becoming a scanner will change you.
        
   

   59 downloads

   1 comment

   Updated March 20

5. 

   Famitsu Issue 1390 (August 6, 2015)

   By kitsunebi

   I don't know much about Minecraft other than that it seems to function as the Oregon Trail of the current generation of kids in Japan (i.e. it's the most entertaining game you're allowed to play at school - granted we only got to see if we could avoid getting dysentery back in the day on the rare occasions when we had a class in the computer lab, while kids today get to whip out their school-provided tablets and play Education Edition Minecraft whenever they've got a free minute between classes.)
   But it must be a pretty decent game if kids are still playing it all these years later.  This issue, from 2015, previews a Minecraft clone...but it's Dragon Quest themed.  And yet here we are 10 years later, and the kids are still playing Minecraft, while Dragon Quest Builders is all but forgotten.  If a Dragon Quest Minecraft clone can't compete with the original in Japan, you know it's got something.
   

   56 downloads

   0 comments

   Submitted March 14

6. 

   Famitsu Issue 1389 (July 30, 2015)

   By kitsunebi

   268 pgs
   A rare case of a Western game making the cover of Famitsu.  Minecraft, Witcher 3, and GTA V even crack the top 30 sales that week.  That's 10 percent!!  Western games on the rise?
   

   63 downloads

   0 comments

   Submitted March 9

7. 

   Famitsu Issue 1373 (April 9, 2015)

   By kitsunebi

   285 pgs
   I've always wondered just what type of game Senran Kagura is.  So I looked it up on Wikipedia, but after reading the entire description and not seeing the word "boobs" even once, I realized that the Wikipedia page must have been talking about some other game.
   

   90 downloads

   2 comments

   Submitted March 5

8. 

   Famitsu Issue 1372 (April 2/9, 2015)

   By kitsunebi

   298 pgs
   I'll be honest, I've never played any games made after 2008 or so.  So I can't offer any anecdotes about anything in this mag, and there would be no point in trying to look up info on any of the games in it since most people visiting this site probably already know whatever I could turn up.
   So I thought about talking about the Jpop group given a 4 page feature, Country Girls, but...sigh...I hate Jpop. Here's the single they were promoting this issue. Maybe you share my opinion or maybe you think this tune slaps 🤨:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1tj7Q1UxXY
    
   So instead I'll talk about Yuusha Yoshihiko (The Hero Yoshihiko), a 3 season TV series from 2011-2016.  It has nothing to do with this issue, but you may find it interesting, nonetheless.  It's a parody of JRPGs, Dragon Quest in particular, and they even got approval from Square Enix to utilize a lot of Dragon Quest monsters and the like.  Of course, the show proudly proclaims its "no budget" status, so the monsters are mostly paper mache and guys in leotards and masks (they rarely show up for more than cameo appearances, anyway).
   I haven't finished watching the whole series, but so far the second season is not as good as the first.  The whole thing is ostensibly terrible, of course, but it's silly enough to have made me LOL several times.  Fair warning: it can be very politically incorrect sometimes.
   The good news is, you can watch the entire thing subtitled in English on the Internet Archive HERE.  
   If anyone gives it a watch, I'd like to hear your take on it.
    
   

   84 downloads

   0 comments

   Submitted March 1

9. 

   Famitsu Issue 1370 (March 19, 2015)

   By kitsunebi

   So here's a fun PS3/PS4 game.  Take photos of girls in compromising positions - up skirts and down shirts. If the girls aren't posing in a way convenient for your photos?  No problem - just do a slide or lay down on the ground and you'll have those panty shots in no time.  OH NOES!  HERE COMES THE PERVERT POLICE!!  Run away to be a sexual predator another day!  Wheee!!!
   Did you all know that there's an actual law in Japan that makes it illegal to sell any camera (including those on mobile devices) that doesn't make a loud "click" shutter noise when a photo is taken?  This noise cannot be disabled, and finding a workaround is illegal.  That's because of shit like this game happening in real life.  But I guess you aren't allowed to murder people in real life, either, and we've got thousands of games where that's the goal, so...yay, lets take photos of underage high school girls' panties without their consent. 🙄
   
   

   59 downloads

   0 comments

   Updated February 26

10. 

    Famitsu Issue 1369 (March 12, 2015)

    By kitsunebi

    246 pgs.
    Another edit finished, another magazine tossed into the recycling bin.  And yet the pile of mags waiting to be scanned never gets any smaller.  Indeed, just when you think you're making progress clearing out the mags cluttering your home by the box-load, you "accidentally" buy some more.  In your head, you know what you're doing is abhorrently wrong, but just like this duck, your body has a mind of its own and your finger clicks the "buy it now" button before your brain has a chance to stop it.  You hang your head in shame.  This is the scanner's own private hell.
    
    

    73 downloads

    3 comments

    Submitted February 17

11. 

    Comptiq No.235 (December 2001)

    By kitsunebi

    I uploaded the included CD-ROM HERE
    

    61 downloads

    0 comments

    Submitted February 15

12. 

    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...)
     
    

    80 downloads

    1 comment

    Updated February 14

13. 

    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?
    

    72 downloads

    1 comment

    Updated February 10

14. 

    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.
    

    93 downloads

    0 comments

    Submitted February 1

15. 

    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.
    

    80 downloads

    4 comments

    Submitted January 26

16. 

    LOGiN 361 (April 2006)

    By kitsunebi

    You know those coffee table art books?  The ones with the super-thick, high-quality paper?  Imagine a gaming magazine printed like that.  And lo, here it is.  This mag is higher quality than any gaming mag ever printed in the Western world, and that's a fact.  Every single page was higher quality than the covers of Western mags.  Granted, it cost 1100 yen (at the time, around $11-12), but damn, this is one fine-looking mag.  Or it was, before I yanked all of its pages out, ran it through my scanner, and tossed it into the recycling.  😱 
    Scanners can't be seduced by pretty things.  All will fall before the heat gun.
     
    Oh yeah, and you can get the demo disc HERE if you want.
    

    83 downloads

    0 comments

    Updated January 24

17. 

    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. 🙂
    

    79 downloads

    4 comments

    Submitted January 22

18. 

    Dengeki PlayStation 120 (October 8, 1999)

    By kitsunebi

    Before writing in this box, I always do a quick flip-through of the mag and comment on whatever happens to strike my fancy, so to speak.  This time, it was Bruce Willis.  Bruce's rugged bald pate from the ad for his PS1 masterpiece, Apocalypse, really stood out from the rest of the ads, not to mention the rest of the games featured in the mag.  It's just so...Western.  Not that Apocalypse is the ONLY Western game to appear in this issue, but the other one is Crash Racing, and that's just cute enough to almost pass as a Japanese game.  But Bruce can't be bothered with cuteness, he's too busy blowing $@^& up.  Yippee kay yay, mother trucker.
    

    109 downloads

    6 comments

    Submitted January 9

19. 

    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.
    

    66 downloads

    0 comments

    Submitted January 2

20. 

    Famitsu Issue 1317 (March 13, 2014)

    By kitsunebi

    There's a report on the PS4 release complete with lots of pictures of people waiting overnight in the cold and proudly holding their newly purchased goods like they're some sort of hero showing off the head of the beast they vanquished.  I've never bought anything at a midnight release event and never will, but if I DID, I think I'd rather not have my picture taken and printed in a magazine.  Who could you ever show it to?
    "Oh, you waited in a line for 24 hours to buy a video game system the moment it was released?  Wow, uh...cool story.  --NNERRRRRD!!!!!"
    

    75 downloads

    7 comments

    Submitted December 31, 2024

21. 

    Tech Gian Issue 032 (June 1999)

    By kitsunebi

    ADULTS ONLY
    I uploaded the CD-ROM that came with this issue HERE.
    One day I'll have to find something to scan I can upload with a big "KIDS ONLY" warning.  Maybe if I find a mag that's cover to cover Minecraft, Fortnite, and Splatoon.  Or maybe if I ever re-scan any Nintendo Powers.  At any rate, this is not that mag.  (If an issue of Tech Gian DOES ever appear with the words "kids only" attached, for god's sake don't download it - you're likely to be arrested and have your hard drives confiscated by the FBI.)
    

    89 downloads

    0 comments

    Submitted December 22, 2024

22. 

    Dengeki PlayStation 118 (September 24, 1999)

    By kitsunebi

    I thought long and hard trying to decide what I should say here, but I've opted instead to convey it via interpretive dance.  248 pgs
    
    

    104 downloads

    0 comments

    Submitted December 20, 2024

23. 

    Dengeki PlayStation 117 (September 10, 1999)

    By kitsunebi

    Is there a more data-packed mag than Dengeki PlayStation?  Not that I've ever seen.  I'm not talking about typical magazine preview fluff, or data on how many polygons the game's engine can crunch, but rather just cold hard in-game data.  Just count the numbers of charts and graphs tracking the tiniest details that appear in DP's pages.  I wonder how much of this stuff got reused in strategy guides...
    

    102 downloads

    0 comments

    Submitted December 15, 2024

24. 

    Dengeki PlayStation 115 (August 13/27, 1999)

    By kitsunebi

    Sometimes I struggle to have anything interesting to say here, and I think, maybe I should just type:
    Dengeki PlayStation Vol.115 (August 13/27, 1999)
    and leave it at that, just like anyone else would do.  But then I think, nah, I've gotta say SOMETHING, no matter how small or insignificant an observation it might be.  So today, I bring you a line dashed off in one of the Syphon Filter reviews which says something like "The exhilarating feeling of becoming a strong hero like 007...and defeating bad guys is truly American!"
    How ya like them apples, UK? 😜
    

    109 downloads

    3 comments

    Submitted December 13, 2024

25. 

    Tech Gian Issue 031 (May 1999)

    By kitsunebi

    ADULTS ONLY
    It's interesting how Tech Gian front-loads all of the advertisements. All of the ads are grouped together near the start of the mag, and once the magazine proper starts, there isn't another ad until the inside back cover.  This is a stark contrast from the ad-heavy American mags I read in the late 90s where every other page was an ad.  Which do you prefer? 🤔
    The CD-ROM included with this issue can be downloaded from my Internet Archive account HERE.
    

    97 downloads

    3 comments

    Updated December 8, 2024