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I found this during my latest attempt to organize Mato’s giant folders of random pictures:

I don’t like this at all! Would you have found this appealing if you saw it as a kid???

Mato & I found a set of 4 magazines from between 1958-1960 at an antique store recently. It’s called “Japan Magazine” and it appears to be targeted toward Americans and Europeans living in Japan. The whole magazine is in English and the articles are written by both Japanese and foreigners, and everything is edited by a Japanese staff. That’s probably why there are some silly-sounding phrases here and there.

I picked out some interesting advertisements to share from Volume 1, Issue 3:

Click on the thumbnails for a closer look:

Looks like the focus is on industry and production, with a few sprinkles of creature comforts. That Ajinomoto ad in the style of American 1950s ads is my favorite of the bunch. And given that there’s been a sort of anti-MSG movement in recent years, it’s doubly amusing.

Well, sort of an LoL book. It’s a localization of a Japanese children’s book! It was written by the producer and narrator of Game Center CX (Producer Kan!), and illustrated and translated by the multi-talented Nina Matsumoto.

Not only that, the Legends of Localization team added tons of bonus content. We interviewed the author, the illustrator/translator, and the designer of the English book. AND! The original Japanese edition of the book is also there in the back, so you can check out the changes that were made.

Also free stickers B-)

Here’s the commercial that was a huge group effort and tons of fun to make!

Buy the book heeeeeeere! And if you happen to find yourself at Tokyo Game Show this week, the book will also be available there! Producer Kan himself will be selling it 😀

My coworker and I did some filming for a commercial yesterday! It’s for the I’m Stuck in a Video Game book written by Game Center CX’s producer & narrator, and illustrated & translated by Nina Matsumoto. The LoL team also added a substantial amount of extra content – interviews, behind-the-scenes sketches and photos, and more.

We filmed it at bossman reidman’s house with the help of his family. Here are some behind-the-scenes photos I took during production:

Now comes editing, adding in special effects, getting music composed, and narration! The book will release once we have this commercial in the bag (hopefully next week?)~

Splatoon 2 released worldwide recently. I’ve been digging through new Japanese gaming magazines for an upcoming project, and I found this cool ad for the game. It also highlights a 320-page art book.

His game wasn’t out yet, and Sonic was already claiming to be super star.

90s Sega ads are never not weird.

Found in the April 26, 1991 edition of Marukatsu Famicom:

One thing we needed for our latest (currently unannounced) book was the earliest example of English appearing in Japanese media that we could find. I scoured auction sites looking for old Japanese magazines from the 1960s and 70s, and I found a few neat things. None of these examples ended up in the book, and it’d be a shame for these photos to go unseen.