The Almost Complete Lowdown on Seiyuu Magazines
I’m sure the majority of seiyuu fans reading this live outside Japan and hence, lack the access to the plethora of programs and radio shows readily available to our Nihon counterparts. Some might resort to buying seiyuu magazines to get a glimpse of our favourites, despite not being able to read a single word of kanji. The problem is - which one’s worth your money? Which one has nicer pictures, better features etc etc? Here’s my rough guide to the four biggest seiyuu mags, and a brief look at some of the other publications on the market to help you make up your mind.
The Big Four
Seiyuu Grand Prix
Publisher: Shufu no Tomosha
First published in: 1995
History: At its inception Seigura was a quarterly publication, then bi-monthly, and finally it merged with sister mag AniRaji Grandprix and became a monthly publication.
Current Price: 980円
Page Count: 120-140, with about 48 pages in black & white
Current Regular Guest Seiyuu Columnists: Tanaka Rie, Ono Daisuke, Shintani Ryoko, Koshimizu Ami, Goto Yuko, Miyano Mamoru, Inoue Marina, Kobayashi Yu, Kasahara Hiroko, Takahashi Mikako, Nakahara Mai, Mizuki Nana, Tamura Yukari.
Special Feature Columns: Seigura currently has 3 regular ’special features’-
1. LOVE MEGANE - They get (a) random seiyuu to do a gravia photoshoot wearing glasses. Good for megane-moe fans.
2. Furusato ni nishiki o kazaru - They pick a seiyuu to go back to their hometown, taking readers around their favourite places, going back to their schools etc etc. Pretty fun feature.
3. Majitomo. - This started being serialised sometime in the middle of last year. Basically, they do a piece on two seiyuu who are good friends in real life. Some of the ‘couples’ that have been featured include Makino Yui + Inoue Marina, Ito Shizuka + Nabatame Hitomi, Seki Tomokazu + Konishi Katsuyuki and the most recent one with Koshimizu Ami + Sanpei Yuko, which of course turned into another session of Amisuke being all ‘rabu-rabu’ over the tsundere ‘Stay as far away from me as possible’ Sanpei-chan.
Personally…..: Seigura is my favourite of the big four. It has a bunch of good regular columns, though I hesitate to say that the seiyuu featured are any much more different from any of the others. Seigura though, has a good website featuring seiyuu news, blogs and HQ pics. Too bad there aren’t too many posters (just the one super-sized one), though that point is moot to me since I like to keep my bedroom walls clean and image-free. Oh, and of course they produce those Hyakka Seiran CDs - the ones where the seiyuu sing out-of-tune karaoke.
Seiyuu Animedia
Publisher: Gakken
First published in: 2004
History: Seiyuu Animedia started out as a quarterly supplementary mag to Animedia in 2004, became bi-monthly in 2005 and finally divorced itself from its parent mag and became an independent publication in February 2007.
Current Price: 980円
Page Count: 120-140, with about 32 pages in black & white
Current Regular Guest Seiyuu Columnists: Tanaka Rie, Morikubo Showtaro, Inoue Kazuhiko, Horie Yui, Yoshino Hiroyuki, Saiga Mitsuki, Nonaka Ai, Suzuki Tatsuhisa, Goto Saori, Fujita Saki.
Contents: Nothing special really, just the usual pics and interviews. They do have a section called INFO100, a guide that highlights the latest news for their so-called ‘currently most popular seiyuu’. Which dubiously includes Shiraishi Minoru at the moment.
Personally…..: It’s very much idol/flavour of the month seiyuu oriented. Very little coverage of obscure or older stuff. The plus point is definitely the 20 or so full-page posters that come with each issue. Oh, and I love the fact that the magazine is STAPLED and not GLUED. I hate glued mags, it makes pulling out the damn pages so much harder -_-
VOiCE Newtype
Publisher: Kadokawa Shoten
First published in: 2002
History: The magazine itself actually started out life as Voice Animage, the sister mag of Newtype’s Tokuma Shoten published rival mag Animage in 1993. Again, Voice Animage used to be published quarterly, then bi-monthly. When editor Kobayashi Hideaki moved from Tokuma to Kadokawa in 2002, so did the magazine - hence the name change. Voice Newtype continues to be published every other even month (February, April etc).
Current Price: 980円
Page Count: Around 130, with 28 pages in B&W
Current Regular Guest Seiyuu Columnists: Morita Masakazu, Sakurai Takahiro, Yoshino Hiroyuki, Kosugi Jurota, Kawakami Tomoko, Noto Mamiko, Ogata Megumi, Chihara Minori, Chiba Saeko, Iwata Mitsuo and Koshimizu Ami.
Contents: Roughly follows the Newtype template, so whatever anime’s hot - the seiyuu will correspondingly feature heavily in VOiCE Newtype. As you can see, that means Gundam 00 will be the main thing for the forseeable future. Code Geass is pretty popular too.
Personally…..: The thing I like most about VN is its size - it’s smaller than Seigura and Seiyuu Animedia, thus it can fit into backpacks easier, heh. Otherwise, there’s really not a whole lot to separate VN from SA, contents wise.
hm³ SPECIAL
Publisher: Ongaku Senkasha
First published in: 1997
History: First included as a quarterly supplement to Jpop mag ARENA37℃, then every other month and in 2003, became a standalone mag. Started monthly publications in 2004. hm³ stands for Hyper Multimedia Music Magazine.
Current Price: 1470円
Page Count: Around 100, with 16 B&W pages.
Current Regular Guest Seiyuu Columnists: monthly - Shiraishi Ryoko, every other month - Seki Tomokazu, Hirohashi Ryo, Nogawa Sakura, Kobayashi Yumiko, Ueda Kana, Miyake Kenta, Inamura Yuuna, Shimono Hiro, Goto Saori, Kingetsu Mami, Tamura Yukari, Asano Masumi, Shintani Ryoko, Konishi Katsuyuki, Shimizu Ai, angela, Hekiru Shiina & Miki Shinichiro.
Special Feature Columns: Not really, but every issue of hm3 has three individual seiyuu spotlight features - usually it’s a mix of Horie Yui, Tamura Yukari, Mizuki Nana, Nonaka Ai, Hirano Aya and Takahashi Naozumi. Also, hm3 publishes random special issues like hm³ Men’s SPECIAL, hm³ GIRLS SELECT, Pick-Up Voice etc etc. There’s postcards included with most issues.
Personally…..: Because of the magazine’s origins (Jpop oriented), hm3 heavily features singing seiyuu, live concert reports and album releases. Apart from the three spotlight features, the rest of the mag features the usual interviews with seiyuu from new shows etc. The stumbling block is of course, the ridiculous price, which is 1.5x more than most of the others. I really don’t think that amount of money extra is really justified, I can only take so many pictures of Mizuki Nana without getting bored out of my skull.
The Others
VOICHA!
Publisher: Shinko Music Entertainment
First published in: 2006
History: The newest seiyuu/anime magazine on the block, launched less than 1 1/2 years ago. Currently published quarterly.
Current Price: 1470円
Page Count: Around 110+
Special Features: It comes with a DVD every issue.
Personally…..: I’ve never bought Voicha!, despite being sorely tempted by the DVD and the fact that a lot of my faves are regularly featured. I have seen scans of it though, and it does look good - many HQ pics, but they do tend to focus on the same photogenic, idol-like people such as Hirano Aya etc. Good thing that there’s also sections devoted to newly airing anime, non-seiyuu people (songwriters, producers and sound directors) and drama CD/event news. I really need to pick up an issue in the future to check it out.
AnicanR
I’ve never read/seen an issue of Anican before either, so I don’t feel prepared to comment on it. All I know is that the price changes from issue to issue (currently around 250-300円) and it’s published on a befuddlingly inconsistent schedule - sometimes twice a month, sometimes once every few months. Their website is all over the place as well, which makes me even less motivated to grab a copy. Anyone who reads Anican and can offer their thoughts, please do so.
To be honest I’ve never really bought seiyuu mags in the past, but now I have a regular income I’ve decided to pick up Seigura every month, and Seiyuu Animedia & VOiCE Newtype depending on who’s inside. Main reason being that I actually read the magazine as opposed to just looking at the images and tearing out the posters - based on the latter point there’s really not a whole lot that separates all of them, but Seigura has more features that I’d actually want to read. And also cos I enjoy Kobayashi Yu’s phallic art ^^;
So how do you get hold of the mags? Amazon.co.jp is the most obvious option for those living overseas. Me? I’ll just ask someone in Tokyo (謝謝大哥!)to buy it for me, cutting out the shipping costs ^^ Anyway, hope the guide’s useful for anyone looking to buy seiyuu mags, and can’t decide on which.
February 8th, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Thanks you so much for this. Context for the bits and pieces of these mags I see. I haven’t seen the actual Seigura mag, but the website keeps coming up with things of interest.
February 8th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
need to find seiyuu grand prix scans. anyone know where i might find it?
February 8th, 2008 at 11:47 pm
hm3 is expensive due to the fact that it’s the only magazine out of the bunch that uses high grade paper. The paper they use is almost the stuff they use in artbooks, while the other mags are just your typical magazine paper. I’m no sure of the exact grain but it’s probably about 1.5 times as heavy, hence while it has less pages but it’s heavier than all of the other magazines. It’s probably the only mag that you can get a good scan without using a sheet of paper to prevent the picture from the other side of the paper coming through too.
I’ve written a guide to seiyuu mags a long time ago too, and my opinion is that hm3 is geared towards collectors (their yearly collection of photos without any overlay text is the best illustraion of their target audience) - it’s the closest you can get to photobook quality, without it being actually one. While the others like SGP and Voice Newtype are your real news type magazines. Voice Animedia and Voicha is probably somewhere in between. If you are taking into consideration of the language ability of the reader - I would say people who has no Japanese knowledge should probably stay away from magazines like SGP and Voice Newtype and get Voice Animeida, hm3 or Voicha.
February 9th, 2008 at 1:01 am
I have to admit I only irregularly buy these magazines for the pics (eg I have the Voicha you introduced, Yuu Kobayashi rawr photo shoot on DVD rawr poster rawr) and I don’t read the text. I guess I’m a sucker for the goodies they come with.
For a while now there seems to be free and for-pay anime/seiyuu news on newsprint style paper. Animate usually carries the for-pay ones. I don’t think they are durable or collectible.
Also related for example Tora no Ana has a free monthly pamphlets with Mai Kadowaki and Masumi Asano penning some entries. That latter one stuck in my mind because she was talking about how she was alone at home sick with the flu and suddenly she started talking about how it would be nice if someone was there to take care of her. Ha. I want to capture all of these articles but how…?
Perhaps houkoholic or someone else with shop prowess can chime in on the above.
Now that you are posting mainly picture posts (you’re going to continue right?
I’ll just drop the paper habit. 
February 19th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Personally I would prefer buying HM3 but usually its always Seiyuu Grand Prix and Seiyuu Animedia that comes with the nice calendars for their January Issue every year.
The latest HM3 has Horie Yui written all over it and I can’t believe I haven’t bought it…. ARGH~
March 9th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
thank you for the post. i’ve learnt something =w=
i’ve bought 2 issues of anicanR… wait if it’s the magazine, i’ve bought it once. can’t say much about the content since i dont have the patience and it really takes a lot of attention for me to comprehend japanese. i can only comment on the paper quality… which is rather cheap. the anicanR magazine’s paper quality is like… 50% down from the normal seiyuu magazine paper quality, and 1/3 of hm3’s. anican also have other issues that feature more anime and a few seiyuu interviews, but those are more like better-quality newspaper, not magazines at all. content-wise they did have a 10000-word interview of fukuyama jun and another 10000-word one of horie yui i think. the newspaper-like issues also always comes with a cardboard thing that has whatever looks like a magazine “cover” printed on them and a CD with Inoue Kikuko-san’s “radio” show + a guest + a few voice messages from different seiyuus. sorry if that was not very helpful ^^;