Super Mystery Magazine MU

As some of you might (but probably most of you don't) know, I am quite the fan of the paranormal - an interest that used to be a bit more intense a few years back, when I was one of those people who actually read through the 'original' UFO documents with a magnifying glass, searching for the truth. Of course, while I hardly vouch for the belief that UFOs are having a snack among us, or that the Mothman might how up at my doorstep for a coffee, I happen to particularly enjoy the paraphernalia that comes along with the paranormal research culture. Mash that up with my interest in Japanese culture and media (which is not itself stranger to the weird, from Mishima's Utsukushii Hoshi to Aum Shinrikyo), and you get, along with my usual dōjin fare, Super Mystery Magazine MU.

And it's a vintage one, too. April 1987, to be exact. The magazine itself is a bulky, disposable manga-style monthly; printed, save for a few advertisements, on cheap telephone book-like paper. The cover hits a certain aesthetics, though from a design point of view it's a veritable disaster. At first glance I thought it was an instruction manual...

For the most part the contents are, as you would expect, pure madness. We run the gamut from occult WWII alternate history, instructions on hand reading, an article on feral children, and a whole lot of those airbrushy illustrations that used to grace the covers of stuff like Omni in the west. There is also a cute 'reader submitted drawings' page...

As I mentioned, most advertisements are in color, and they are ridiculous. Ever wanted your own Bio-Pit Alpha / Theta waves generator? now you got it, and in the cleverly new-age pyramid format. How about a Hiranya-brand UFO detector (a company that, by the way, seems to have tanked decades ago)? Mind-reading glasses? Craziness abunds, usually accompanied by creepy imagery right out of the Eighties book of tricks. Curiously, the magazine also holds a 'literature' section - which, in the issue I have, is dedicated to H.P. Lovecraft. There is a bio, a dossier, and even a full translation of 'The Statement of Randolph Carter'.

So, yet another oddity for the vault. Some of the Japanese is still above my grasp, but the visuals and aesthetics alone probably warrant publishing a few more issues.