Otaku USA is an all-new anime and manga magazine that hit streets Tuesday, June 5th. In 2007 it will be printed bimonthly, but word on the street is that it will go monthly in 2008. Fans on the internet are already balking at the $9.99 cover price, although it is $3 cheaper than competitor’s NewType USA’s $12.95 pricetag. Both magazines come with a double-sided poster and a DVD with three episodes of anime (on average) as well as trailers for anime series and videogames.

Sure, there are some other anime magazines on the market, but most of them are garbage. Wizard’s Anime Insider is possibly the worst of the bunch, with their stiflingly positive reviews and stale news items. Anime Insider is analogous to Time Out New York insomuch as when I pick up a copy of Time Out New York and flip through it I find a wealth of information that I already know.

My relationship with Protoculture Addicts, which partnered with Anime News Network, has been a tumultuous one. New issues are slow to come out. Although Protoculture Addicts has useful coverage of the world of live action Asian cinema, it still seems a little after-the-fact. I’ve already read most of Protoculture’s news items on Anime News Network prior to the magazine’s release.

Several anime magazines over the years have gone under. I remember Animerica fondly from my days of browsing through Suncoast stores. Suncoast’s parent corporation filed for bankruptcy last year (or two years ago). Animerica disappeared from the scene, but now it’s back as a free magazine in Waldenbooks and Borders. I almost never go to Walden’s or Borders, so I have not seen a copy of the latest incarnation of Animerica.

I have subscribed to NewType for three years, which was not a big deal when I had a disposable income. I don’t know how teenagers manage to swing the $90 a year subscription rate.

NewType’s glossy full-color pages on heavy paperstock are tough competition for Otaku USA, if you’re, y’know, shallow. Otaku USA, although it is also glossy and full color, has a slightly smaller trim size and the pages are a bit thinner. NewType offers one sample manga chapter each month (June’s issue has Kobato, a new manga from CLAMP), and Otaku USA offers two chapters from different manga (this issue has Gon and Princess Resurrection).

But I’m not here to talk to you about how NewType has 11 manga reviews in the June issue and Otaku USA covers 25 manga titles, no, I’m here to talk to you about graphic design. Get a load of Otaku USA’s cover design:

Crillee Italic is not really my favorite font. What’s with the bright almost neon colors and all caps? It reminds me of those “Button Your Fly” t-shirts from circa 1990:

More importantly, get a load of NewType side-by-side with Otaku USA:

What is up with the identical layout? Is this a trap for parents who were told to pick up NewType for their teen and couldn’t remember the title? Or is it a trick for n00b fans who have read NewType in the past and forgot the title, and they might accidently grab Otaku USA instead?

If it’s a trap, I guess that’s alright. There’s a lot more useful content in Otaku USA. I rarely learn anything from NewType outside of the latest promotional anime studio blurbs from Japan in the front and the columns in the middle. NewType does not deeply analyze any of their featured anime, and since the magazine is owned by ADV, a heavy percentage of the magazine is devoted to promoting ADV’s shows.

I learned a lot from Otaku USA – mostly about Gundam models in a series of three features titled: “The Meaning of Gunpla,” “A Brief History of Gunpla,” “Building the World’s Biggest Gunpla” and “Bandai Hobby Center Break-in,” a tour of Bandia’s hobby factory where Gundam kits are built. I’m not a giant robot fan or a Gundam fan, but each piece was interesting and well-written.

The anime features were clever and more quoteable than anything you’ll read in Anime Insider or NewType.

From Joseph Luster’s spotlight on Yoshiaki Kawajiri, talking about Wicked City: “This joint is so loaded with sexuality that it put 90% of the otaku generation through puberty in an instant.”

Tomohiro Machiyama’s piece “A Good War: The Meaning of Gunpla” opens with the line: “What kind of boy hates war? None!”

From Daryl Surat’s review of Hellsing Ultimate, volume 2: “Alucard simply can’t be killed or even injured; his fighting style consists of ‘don’t bother to dodge while the other guy shoots/stabs/dismembers me, then reveal that I’M ONLY USING 20% OF MY FULL POWER, AND IT’S OVER NINE THOUSSSSSSSANDDDDDD!’ ”

I’m a little worried that Otaku USA might not have a future. Although I hate advertisements as much as the next reader, magazines need funding, and Otaku USA had less than half the ad count of NewType. Three of the ads were for starblazers.com and three were for rightstuff.com, giving the bizarre impression that “this magazine was brought to you by Star Blazers.”

The balls-to-the-wall hands-down best article in Otaku USA’s first issue and the reason to buy the magazine is Mark Nagata’s article about collecting Japanese Children’s Rides. Holy crap, look at this:

That is a ride-on Ultraman thing, my friend, and Mr. Nagata bought it and had it shipped to his home in California.

On the downside, some of the internal layout of Otaku USA is a direct rip-off of NewType in a ridiculous way. Compare these the two magazines’ video game review sections:

What the hell is that? I think Otaku USA could be a little more original than that in the graphic design department.

Only the Gunpla section of articles breaks free of the NewType layouts and ventures into new design territory:

At this point I should admit that this review is far from biased. Contributors Daryl Surat, Gerald Rathkolb, and Clarissa Graffeo also run the Anime World Order podcast. I’m a huge fan of AWO, and I was even shot by Daryl Surat at Anime Weekend Atlanta last year, wherein I was sharing a hotel room with Gerald and Clarissa. Gerald had a few articles in this issue, but I was shocked to find that Daryl and Clarissa wrote nearly all of the anime reviews.

Jason Thompson is the manga editor. He was recently interviewed for the Mangacast about his upcoming book Manga: The Complete Guide, which is a guide to every manga ever published in English. Most of the synopsis were written by Thompson himself, enabling him with the super-human power to write short and succinct manga reviews at lightening-fast speeds. Other manga contributors included Shaenon Garrity – who does the “Overlooked Manga Festival” thing that I read each week. (I’ve read a few of Garrity’s Narbonic books as well.) Mangacast host and animeondvd.com reviewer Ed Chavez is doing a column on manga from Japan for Otaku USA. Chavez may have stayed at my apartment last weekend to go to the Book Expo convention. (Also I may have contributed a feature article for a future issue.)

Basically if Brigid Alverson, Carl Horn, and those guys from the Same Hat blog contribute to Otaku USA, everyone who I think is cool on the internet will be writing for Otaku USA.

I’ve been reading editor-in-chief Patrick Macia’s blog ever since I picked up a copy of Cruising the Anime City an Otaku Guide to Neo Tokyo. Some of the topics covered on Macia’s blog and podcast “Hot Tears of Shame” are also in the first issue of Otaku USA. Months ago he posted a video of himself building the world’s largest Gundam kit with Matt Alt (who appears frequently on Macias’s podcast) and the mysterious Masked BAKUC. Matt Alt (Hello Matt Alt, if you’re reading this, I think you are cool!) also contributed articles to the magazine, and even BAKUC gets a weird Engrish write-up: “I feel this mysterious heartbeats by making model-kits.”

Macia’s coverage of Wonder Festival in the magazine feels like a rerun of his blog, and of course he takes the time to plug his own books. Look for my review of Japanese School Girl Inferno on this site later this month.

On the last page of Otaku USA is “Mistakes of Youth,” a webcomic I never would have heard of had Macias not linked to the comic creators interviewing him on their podcast.

In the future, I’d like to see an older, artsy-er, hipper look to Otaku USA – particularly the cover. I was going to make mock-ups of Otaku USA covers parodying some of the magazines below, but I have other things to do this weekend. In conclusion, Dear Otaku USA, please consider cooler magazine cover designs, more like the following:

Think about it! The girl on the cover could be making Gundam models!