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Book Off in Phoenix, AZ brings a Japanese shopping experience to Arizonans

On my trip to my hometown of Phoenix, AZ during my summer vacation, I was able to visit a Book Off on Bell Road! It opened within recent years. There have been Book Off stores all along in California. When Mayu and I used to live in America, we would visit the Book Off locations in Torrance, Garden Grove, Los Angeles and other areas. But now both Book Off and Daiso stores have opened in the Phoenix area.

Here are the signs outside.

Look at all the books! The books are in English, of course. Otherwise, the experience is just like a Book Off in Japan. This makes Book Off a direct competitor with the long-standing Bookmans store locations in Arizona.

The store clerk says that so much of this stuff is imported from the Book Off locations in Japan. I guess they buy so much stuff that they just export it to the USA for sale there.

So many anime figures for sale in the display case.

So many pin buttons, keychains, and small figures. Just like a Book Off in Japan.

They have import Famicom games from Japan! Star Wars, Red Arima, Parodius, Galaga… neat stuff!

Import Famicom and Super Famicom games too.

Domestically-released modern games are sold used there as well, of course.

This is the Grave of the Fireflies movie soundtrack on vinyl record. I was surprised to find this.

Huge selection of used, English-language manga. I bought several used volumes of Spy Family.

Gunpla! There were also other model kits there too. I even saw an Eggplane Girl resin figure by Hasegawa there, and for a good price. This is so cool.

Dollar books. Very neat. I didn’t have time to look at the SF book selection there. It would’ve been nice if I had more time to spend, but I had quite a busy itinerary with my friends Kevin and Brian. (Our next destination was Andy’s Hobby HQ which I featured in my previous blog post.)

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Images of Jean and Nadia’s wedding in the novel, “Jean and Nadia’s Longest Day”

I posted before about how the Nadia movie was a real dud, especially since it reset the characters and failed to feature Jean and Nadia’s wedding in this post here although it was featured in a doujinshi manga I included scans of here. Well, I recently learned of this novel published by Tokuma Shoten called “Jean and Nadia’s Longest Day,” written by Hirotoshi Kobayashi and illustrated by Kazuhiro Miyake. I bought it from Rakuten rather cheaply. There are novelizations of the TV series in three books, but this one is under the “Nadia Stories vol. 1” category. Vol. 2 in this series apparently involves an older Marie and Samson. Maybe it’s a story about how they get married? It’s the same writer and artist team.

In this book’s prologue, it says that Jean and Nadia were married in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. I’ve only read the first page so far. It’s pretty easy to understand so far, with only a few kanji I had to look up. I’m sure the reading level will become more difficult though as this is an adventure story after all. By the looks of it, the antagonist in this story is some weird non-human with some weird Illuminati-style horns growing out of his forehead. Anyhow, it’s neat seeing Nadia a bit older. Aside from the full color images I’ve scanned below, there are some occasional black and white illustrations interspersed through the pages of the novel.

An older Nadia, apparently sewing her wedding dress?

Nadia as a happy bride. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto did not do the artwork for this book, but as I mentioned above it was done by Kazuhiko MIyake. Not bad. So now I’ll show you some of the black and white pictures from the book, namely the ones featuring Nadia.

The only nice thing about the Nadia movie were the older character designs, and the art i this book remains faithful to that image of an older Nadia.

OK, so apparently Nadia makes a re-appearance at the circus she was once the star of? She’s wearing the same clothes, but they’re getting a bit small since she’s no longer 14 years old. Her top barely fits her tits now.

Looks like Nadia’s not having a good day. She got attached to yet another Y-shape, although this time it’s some sort of wall recession. The guy at the bottom is the villain of the story.

I’ll give the book a shot, but I’ve no idea how far I can get into it as I am not fluent enough, even for this novel aimed at adolescents. Nearly 10 years ago, I got to the point where every new kanji started looking the same, and all the pronunciations started sounding the same.

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A look at modeling magazines and books at Bookman’s Academy in Maebashi

On the last Friday of June, after dinner in Maebashi we went to Bookman’s Academy, a nice two-story bookstore on the road straight south from the sushi restaurant we ate at. This bookstore not only has a great selection of modeling magazines, but upstairs in the “subculture” category, there are many books about modeling. First I’ll show you the magazine section.

Here you’ll see Armour Modelling with Umi Shinonome gracing the cover with her own color of paint (as shown above), Artpla, a Model Art mook on painting, Model Cars, a mook on modeling tools (I believe by Model Art), Figure King (covering pre-painted figures as well as kits), Macross Mechanics (a mook devoted to Macross modeling), a mook on painting techniques for WWII camouflage patterns from various countries, and something about the Yamato. To the far right you’ll see a couple of magazines about firearm replicas, which I am really not into. Looking down, you’ll see this:

Here are issues of Hobby Japan, Model Graphix, Scale Aviation, and Model Art. Oh, but that’s not all. I actually didn’t show you the row of modeling mooks on the shelf between these two pictures.

Here is a look at the Macross Mechanics modeling mook. This is the summer issue. Alright, now let’s head upstairs to the subculture section. This should blow you away.

Here are the magazines along the top. Gundam Archives is put out by Model Graphix magazine. These are mooks that are collections of Gunpla builds featured in the magazine. They also have Macross Archives and Votoms Archives that I’ve seen. In the middle is the SD Gundam Perfect Modeling Manual, and to the right is one on Ultraman models.

Look at all of these Gunpla modeling books! Here they have the Gundam Sentinel book, a compilation of the Sentinel articles once featured in Model Graphix magazine. Lots of other stuff too, like Hobby Japan Vintage, Hobby Japan Extra (these are mooks focusing on different subjects), more Gundam Archives issues, a book on Gundam MSV, and I spot a Scope Dog Votoms book. Looks like it might come with a model, the way it’s in a box like that.

Lots of other stuff, too! Model lighting, AFV, a book on building an F-14 Tomcat which actually covers the work of an American modeler building Tamiya’s Tomcat, various 72nd scale plane modeling books, and so on. This is the store where I bought the book showcasing modeling workbenches of several famous modelers, as well as the model lighting book by Dorobou Hige.

Here’s the Votoms Archives mook I mentioned, with a look inside. I love the paint scraping detail on the legs, from the armored skirt. Fantastic detail.

Here’s a book called “Soul of the 1/72 Scale” (ナナニイの魂) which covers multiple plane subjects in that scale.

Bookman’s Academy has such a fantastic selection of modeling books. I always enjoy going to this store with my family.