July 2008, the last big birthday issue before it'd all end. We're in that Summer haze, there's a financial crash unfolding but hope buzzing in the political scene, and you have nothing to worry about but a manga magazine finally popping up in the grocery store. The anime community is embracing for the final impact of posh boys in a strange reverse harem.
Okay probably a little over dramatic. But better than melancholic. Which is something we have a preview of here. Never hear of Short-Tempered Melancholic but Arina Tanemura has good buzz from Full Moon.
Our lineup, not too odd for these 2008 ones. Honey & Clover is still your established flagship. Crimson Hero & Sand Chronicles complete a good, solid trio of shoujo series from the time period. Then Vampire Knight covers something a little gloomy and goth while Haruka: Beyond the Stream of Time is something for your girlies looking for the next fix after Inuyasha & Fushigi Yuugi. I would point out we've escalated beyond just having two previews now to this limited series as well and well...maybe that's a pretty good sign the magazine was having trouble maintaining a consistent identity.
I'd argue this was Shojo Beat's fatal flaw. They didn't want to give you the best their brand had in the magazine. Think about Shonen Jump in the US, it wasn't just that it had emerging hits like Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece, they also re-ran Dragonball in it. That trio of Honey & Clover, Sand Chronicles, and Crimson Hero...none of them are bad series at all. You needed some real headliners though. You had heavy hitters on the greater imprint like Hana Yori Dango and no one would have given you shit for bending the definition of "shoujo" a bit and finally giving Ranma 1/2 a fair shake in the US. Though I'd imagine there's a fair question how Takahashi would feel about that.
Even then, this magazine had a decent initial release and doubled its subscriber base from then to now. About 40,000 of an issue in circulation. I think it was smart, Shonen Jump was doing well and it was an easy pitch to some rando supermarket manager or whatever that "hey, same deal but this one's more slanted to teen girls." I remember, like even if I didn't care about anime as much at the time we'd go to the bookstore and yeah the two looked good side-by-side.
What I always respected was a sense of identity. This was a fun part of magazines, they'd always have an established tone or character. Shojo Beat knew what it was, a niche within a niche but it was also something that only existed because that double niche was quite popular. Looking back it still kinda ran ahead of the peak for this era of anime fandom. And you can kinda see that in hyping things like Honey & Clover or Full Moon. I know its a pretty narrow span of years but think about how I've approached this retrospective on it. Usually pointing out I wasn't in anime fandoms at the time but I can speak to most of what the magazine is covering.
Shojo Beat took the era I remember most and brought it into the mainstream. There was a brief period like this where you saw legit offerings that sorta "print the internet." Hindsight is 20/20, but Viz would have done great pushing them to make a good Youtube channel at about this time. It's not like a magazine this niche could ever have survived the 2010s but man...it probably would have been worth propping up until about 2014-2015 when Shonen Jump finally gave out.
More summer stuff. What a time capsule. You know, I was in and around New Orleans over the Christmas Break before this issue. Dad got us banned from a chain of casinos and I won $80 at roulette. The fashion here is pretty on point. Like, I can't laugh at these people I literally transitioned close enough to this era I dressed like all five pictured here. Though my hat was a green stripey one like Urahara's so it sorta worked both ways and my favorite menswear signature was like...really elaborate colorful Japanese-style belts and girls knew something was up when I'd coordinate colored laces on Chuck Taylors with em. That plus a few stylish button-downs was my Senior "open door closet" style.
All to say I'd be better dressed than these dudes at the time and within a year yeah the girl on the top right is pretty on point for lowkey girl outfits and first forays. Leaving me right in time for young adulthood in the era business casual was trendy which was pretty efficient at least. I still love the big chunky belts and you know what? Maybe we wouldn't have quite so many bitter young men today if we hadn't have been so hard on shit like fedoras and puka shells.
The games, the games tell you the time so well. My brother was back from college and big on the Wii so wii played a lot of that Mario Kart. Good entry in the series. And Wii Fit was memorable.
