Patrick Macias
December 30, 2010 
From left: UFO from Battle in Outer Space, Gamera, Godzillla, Ultraman, Yamato
Hey, this is Patrick. And what would you know? Another year is actually coming to an end, which means that the inter-dimensional space-time anomaly known as “2010 is 1980” is about to conclude.
With only a few days left until the inevitable “2011 is 1981” hovers into orbit, I figure it’s time to clear house on my periodic looks back at what the heck was going on in anime, manga and Japanese pop culture in general some 30 odd years ago. Previous editions in this retrospective & utterly nostalgic series can be found here and here and of course in the “2010 is 1980” category on my personal blog.
How can you resist issue one of the Japanese Fantasy Film Society newsletter?So what’s on the agenda this time? Well, I’m sitting here next to a stack of newsletters for something called the “Japanese Fantasy Film Society” dating from (you guessed it) 1980. They consist of 4 pages of Xeroxed high contrast black and white images and text. Although they were produced mere decades ago, they look and feel ancient: the otaku equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
First of all, nope, I was not a member of the “Japanese Fantasy Film Society”. I didn’t even know such a thing ever existed until I procured these newsletters a few years back from… I can’t remember where. eBay? At a con? Did they just spontaneously materialize out of time/space onto my desk?
While the origin of these papers remains mysterious, the cover of the first issue of the Japanese Fantasy Film Society tells you pretty much what you need to know about the people who made this newsletter and where their heads were at: a drawing of the island continent of Japan is front and center. Around it drifts a veritable bestiary of everything great about it: Godzilla, Mazinger Z, Gamera, the space battleship Yamato, yokai monsters, Astro Boy, King Ghidorah, and many, many more.
A quick flip of the page later, the reader must navigate a tiny typewriter-created font: the punk-rock ready look of classic homemade ‘zines, way before desktop publishing and personal computers made this sort of thing a snap. What burning and obsessive passions the enlightened beings who formed this here Japanese Fantasy Film Society must have had! All I know about them is that they were based in the Chicago area. The regular issues don’t have any editorial credits. It really IS like these things popped out of nowhere! But the first issue has some names scribbled in handwriting (note to future self: always include your printed name in addition to your signature). One of them is Alex Wald, who is still active as an amazing illustrator of SF-monster-rock and roll themed art. Check out his blog here. The other—I think—is Ed Godziszewski, a name familiar to kaiju fans who published the seminal, and still around, Japanese Giants ‘zine.
Don’t forget to take yer supplements! Here’s Godzilla’s buddy AngliasWhy did they do it? So sayeth the introductory essay in the first issue: “For one reason or another, a widespread, unified fandom has not surfaced to encompass all areas of Japanese fantasy fandoms… It is our desire that circumstances willing, the JFFS will be able to achieve the goal of a unified following for the Japanese fantasy film product.” And such a goal they tried to achieve one mighty newsletter at a time.
Back in 1980, there were US produced ‘zines and newsletters for anime and for live-action special effects films of the Godzilla-ilk, but no one was really embracing both fronts at the same time. Sometimes, the anime fan press would cover live action releases, and vice-versa, but it usually seemed like a formality of sorts. And besides, you had to fill those harsh Xeroxed pages with something lest your club members demand their Self Addressed Stamped Envelopes back!
By contrast, the JFFS really did seem to go both ways and the December 1980 / January 1981 issue of the newsletter (published, lest anyone should ever forget, exactly 30 years ago!!!) proves it. The first item concerns rumors of a new Godzilla film in development at Toho Studios—it helps to remember that a new G film hadn’t been produced since 1975 and fans were starving for the Lizard King. Up next is news about the then-new color Astro Boy TV series and the feature anime film Cyborg 009: Legend of the Super Galaxy. After an update on the story and production work on the Space Battleship Yamato III series, there’s some info about the live-action X-Bomber series which points out that the show had just been picked up by the BBC to air in the UK as Star Fleet. Finally, there’s some news about the Japanese box-office for 1980. Turns out the highest grossing film for Toho that year was Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha. Kinji Fukasaku’s doomsday epic Virus was in second place and a double-bill of Doraemon: Nobita’s Dinosaur and Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964) hit the number four spot. How the JFFS must have wanted to see the latter in the theater!
It was 30 years ago today…the Dec ’80 / Jan ’81 issue of the JFFS newsletterLooking back at these dusty newsletter of yore, I have to ask myself: do I really miss this analog era of fandom? Well, yes and no. It’s much easier to stay on top of the latest news now thanks to the speed-of-thought pace of the Internet. The waiting gaps for members of the JFFS in between issues must have been agonizing. But it also must have been great to receive a new issue in the mail… an actual physical artifact crafted out of pure fannish obsessions rather than digital zeros and ones.
So did the JFFS ever reach their goal to unify anime and live-action fandom under a single groove? Could anyone ever accomplish such a task? Well, all one can do is try. It sounds corny, but hey, I’m a cornball so what can I do: The Japanese Fantasy Film Society may not exist anymore (they seem to have petered out around 1984 or thereabouts), but their inspiration lives on every time a new issue of Otaku USA goes to press. Which is why… 2010 is 1980.
—
Patrick Macias is the editor in chief of Otaku USA magazine. His blog can be found online at www.patrickmacias.blogs.com
