I've been sitting on a vein of these old Shojo Beat magazines. We did the first two I found and my count is now eight from random points across its run. This is currently the earliest one I have. November 2006. So this would be a little after I let my subscription to the first year of the magazine lapse. Sophomore year of high school in full swing and that was definitely my peak for trying to go with the flow and have a "normal" teen life. Some raucous parties out in country wheat fields and the year I really remember friends like, catching a ride home from school with me to do some silly backyard shenanigan.November 06 sounds like right about the time we started our standing Monday night "study group" that was really getting together to watch Wrestling and cook up ideas to get a viral video on this new Youtube thing.
I like this one is early enough it has an MSRP on the label! $6 for an issue or a $35/yr subscription. For reference, in 2006 that'd be a pretty pricey magazine but not crazy. Still, I could probably get two mainstream ones like Cosmopolitan for around that price at a newsstand. And a tankbon being ~$10 has been pretty static since then. I really liked Eiichiro Oda's recent interview where he talked about the sorta "kid math" and when it feels like a good deal to get a manga magazine. It's interesting to think a bit about how that gets skewed when it's a more luxury import niche here. For $6 I can get a sampler of seven series plus articles or for $10 a few more chapters all of the same series. In Japan even more recently that gap and both prices are a lot smaller. The difference of about 300 vs 500 Yen. At least from what I saw. So you're definitely looking at a higher relative barrier to entry plus at that point a couple extra bucks means less...I get why these struggled.
Here's the line-up, still mostly the same as the initial issue but there have been some changes. Backstage Prince is a pretty new addition and won't be around for long, but is one of the few series to have its full run in the magazine. Gave us Akari, the girl on the cover in a cute gingham look. Vampire Knight is here which replaced the early 90s Godchild as your designated goth aesthetic. That one would stick around til the final issue along with Crimson Hero which was the sole manga to go the full distance in Shojo Beat.
Not a whole lot of ads or anything that just screamed 2006 to me, but I did get a kick out of the tips on how to get a guy. Number 10 is such a copout, I wanna know more about how to get sent to a magical world.
Did have a pretty cool interview with a Japanese musician who was relevant at the time. This song crept its way onto some game soundtracks like FIFA. Good tie-in with the manga preview for this issue. Punch! Which was about a girl who grew up in a martial arts family, had a pushy scion of the dojo declaring he's her fiance and scaring any guy she takes an interest in, then a street brawler she falls for. Seems cool. Reminds me a bit of Air Master around the same time. Gymnast girl who got really big at puberty transitions into street fights. Yes. Fun little setup, wonder if the rest of the series is any good.
