In the 90's, Idol business was booming, and so were the magazines that featured and promoted them! Though there were far too many titles to mention, the BIG ones for us J-pop fans (at least here in Hawaii) were Up T0 Boy and BOMB!
Of them all, BOMB was the one we liked most as it seemed to cater towards the artists WE loved, those Pony Canyon artists like CoCo, ribbon, Qlair, Nishida Hikaru, etc, etc. I had mentioned before how BOMB! was the magazine that first introduced me to idols like Kyoko Fukada, Hiroko Anzai, and even Ayumi Hamasaki (!!), and so it was worthwhile picking it up even if you didn't know who was on the cover 'cause you never knew who you'd learn about next!!
In 1996, I grabbed the latest issue which featured actress Kanako Enomoto (and WHOA, remember her? She was quite popular there for a while!) and was thrilled to find that, as a bonus for hitting 200 issues, they had included a fold-out poster showing ALL of the covers from issue 1 up to present!
MAN, just poring over that poster, it just KILLED us to see all those great issues featuring CoCo and Ribbon that we'd never be able to get our hands on! Ah, the days before internet and things like ebay and YahooJAPAN auctions- Back then all we could do was dream!
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BUT in this modern age, you can use those aforementioned dealers to get your hands on just about anything if you have the time, money and patience- and case in point: when recently perusing Suruguya, I saw they had a whole smorgasbord of BOMB! back issues, and I wasted no time diving into their stock to see what they had to offer!
I was overjoyed to find they had MANY of those issues we'd wistfully looked on fondly back in the day (featuring artists ribbon, Qlair and of course CoCo, CoCo, and MORE CoCo!!!), and every one of them went into my shopping cart! WELL, just today they arrived and I have to tell you, the old Pony Canyon Idol Fan in me just couldn't be more pleased and giddy! They are as beautiful as I'd dreamed, furthermore, each one was just CRAMMED full of 90's idol goodness, instantly taking me back to those days of the mid-90's when EVERYTHING was about those idol gals!!!
For example, take this issue featuring QLAIR on the cover. Sure, there was a nice Qlair pictorial in in, but there was SO MUCH MORE, promotions and pictorials for books and concerts that painted a very SPECIFIC time in my life- seems like everything they promoted this issue was something I excitedly purchased and was totally excited about back then!
After the QLAIR pictorial, they BLEW ME AWAY with coverage of the collosal OTOMEJUKU MATSURI concert, those who follow me know how dearly I hold this concert- it was the one which I got for CoCo and then introduced me to acts like ribbon, Qlair and Michiyo Nakajima, acts who ALSO became HUGE faves!
Would have LOVED to have had this issue back then to go along with the laserdisc- chock full of photos and group/member information, it's practically a PROGRAM for the event!
A spread promoting ribbon's awesome 1991 HARLEM NIGHT concert, one of my FAVE live concerts from the trio!
...then some short coverage of both WINK and Nishida Hikaru's concert releases, the latter for Hikaru's "1991 Manatsu Jouzu Concert ", the concert release of hers I consider her BEST!
a cute Erika Haneda pictorial which, according to the info, is promoting her solo single "Maigo Ni Sasenaide"...
Coverage of Reiko Miura's small drama appearance (with Ayumi Ishida!!)
CoCo Game Night where the girls play games against each other! I had already seen most of this coveragein a CoCo Collection BOMB! Memorial Book released to commemorate the band's breakup, interesting to see it here in "real time"!
Besides all those Pony Canyon girls, they also had behind the scenes coverage of a Noriko Sakai drama appearance...
...some news on Eriko Tamura...
Miho Nakayama update...
a Yumiko Takahashi pictorial (MAN, she was everywhere back then!)
...and if that wasn't enough, the issue also included 3 pages of...IRON ONs!!! Holy COW, remember those? They were such the rage back in the day!!!
They even cutely give information of how to iron those onto your t-shirts, for those not familiar with it, LOL
BOY, can you believe this was all in just ONE ISSUE??? MAN, from COVER to COVER, back then they really gave you your bang for your buck! No WONDER it was such a popular magazine!!!
PS: I don't know exactly how deeply connected BOMB! magazine was to Pony Canyon, but I DID notice that every time one of the artists got the cover, the BACK cover was an advertisement for that artist's latest release!
Front Covers:
Flipping them around, BACK covers;
Did BOMB give the group the cover if they paid for the ad in the back? I never noticed this happening in later issues, MUST have been an early thing. But I'll bet the fans didn't complain, the ad just became MORE pinup material! I mean, look at that ad for ribbon's single "Yoake Nante Iranai"...that picture is bigger than the entire actual single itself! Definitely collectible on its own!
Yep, the 90's were a real heaven for idol fans!!!
