Ask John: What is a Roman Album?

Question:
I’ve seen that there are different art books for the same series or movie. There might be an actual “Art of….” book while there is also a “Roman Album” or “Newtype” art book. Newtype, I assume, is just the publisher but what is a Roman Album? Is that also a publisher or is it some special kind of art book?

Answer:
“Roman Album” is a series of anime guide books published by Tokuma Shoten. According to popular mythology, the name is derived from ROMANce adventure ALBUM (meaning volume or book). The first Roman Album, devoted to Space Cruiser Yamato, was published back in the 1970s. Up until the early 1990s, the Roman Albums were a numbered series, and each new addition to the set had a consecutive number. For example, Roman Album 7 is for Tetsuwan Atom; Roman Album 46 is Future Boy Conan; Roman Album 55 is devoted to the GoShogun TV series and volume 65 to the movie; and Roman Album 70 is a guide to Kiki’s Deliver Service. Beginning with the Nadia Roman Album, which is, I think, volume 71, the Roman Albums were no longer consecutively numbered.

The Roman Album books are highly prized because they are such thorough and high quality reference books to the shows they represent. Each Roman Album contains complete color film story, black and white production art, promotional illustrations, reference material, staff and cast interviews and more. The Roman Albums are the epitome of Japanese anime series illustration books.

There aren’t as many “old timer” anime book collectors as there once were in America, but in America old Roman Albums are still capable of commanding high prices. I’ve seen Roman Album 61 (Nausicaa) sold for as little as $10 and as much as $50. The early Yamato and Captain Harlock Roman Albums turn up very rarely, and usually fetch anywhere from $50 to $100. Besides the fact that the Roman Albums are very nice books, for years they were unusually cheap relative to their quality. The very first Roman Album carried a cover price of only 480 yen. Even now, current volumes like the recently released Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi Roman Album have a significantly cheaper cover price than other anime books of the same age and quality. The cheap price of Roman Albums encouraged fans (including myself) to buy them and use them to discover new and old anime series, especially in the 1980s and 1990s when it was much easier in America to find cheap imported anime books than actual highly expensive imported anime videos.