Necromanticism

Volume 5 ~Reflection~ Issued in November 1999. ( Cover ) ( Contents ) ( Pg 4 ) Illustration by EBIWO, now going by EBIO. Very guro. You can see the bullet points from the contents page going through because it was too much work to scan each page individually and the paper is thin. I’m guilty. ( Pg 5 ) Illustration by Yumeko Hoshina, who designed the c over this time. Angsty words, maybe a poem. It is titled ‘春日狂想’ but I don’t know what that means. ( Pg 6 & 7 ) Writing about philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, self-awareness and self-consciousness which I presume is how this volume got its title of ‘ reflection ’. Lotus flower picture credit to DIA. (Pg 8-11 ) are undecorated pages with similar musings about philosophy, this time about mirrors and illusions. Which is my image? Which is the real me? Very Alice through the looking glass , but ultimately not relevant or interesting enough to include. ( Pg 12 & 13 )  Double page titled ‘My Best Film’ with a terribly photocopied...

Volume 4 ~End of the Century Controversy~ Issued in June 1999. ( Cover ) by Augusta x K ( Contents ) ( Pg 5 ) ( Pg 4, 6 & 7 ), not pictured, are less succinct introductions to the ‘End of Century’ that we see here. ( Pg 5 ) talks about their anxieties towards the famous panic leading into the year 2000 about the end of times, linked to astrologist Nostradamas’ predictions. They joke about this issue being their last because of the impending apocolypse. I wish I could have witnessed the y2k craziness to see how dramatic people really were. ( Pg  8 & 9 ) The One Who Wonders in Eternal Sin and Punishment- by K. Titled ~Immortal and Vampire~  Collage of momento mori imagery and words about blood, dirt and sin. I love the gravestone etching, it reminds me of the ones in Propaganda and also one I saw in a graveyard in Edinburgh. ( Pg 10 ) Poem or short story by Yumeko Hoshino, about a cat/ rabbit similar to the one in Vol.2. I can’t make sense of it as someone who does not ...

 I bought my first volume of Tsugakan*  柘榴舘 in early 2023 presuming that I would never see more of this obscure gothic fanzine, happy to let it remain a mystery. But this year I had the opportunity to purchase 2 more volumes and share them with you all! I am breaking it up into a post for each volume just because it might be too much to fit them all in one. Things that I know: There is said to be at least six volumes made, running from 1998~1999 (maybe up to 2000). It was sold at Territory Occult Shop in Osaka and at Doll Aoyama/ K1-doll in Nagoya. Later issues were sold at somewhere called PINK HAZARD in Tokyo (seems to be an SM bar now, though I can’t be sure it was one in the 90s). It was published by 憂鬱の解剖舎- the anatomy of melancholy? *Webmaster note- I can’t understand Japanese (T_T) I the copies that I own are Vol.2, Vol.4 and Vol.5. I posted Vol.2 when on my instagram when I first got it but I will re-introduce its pages in more detail below. Volume 2  ‘Specia...