[Soichi Nishina] ECARTE Vol. 9 - Mobile Suit Gundam Special Edition - Orbitless Warrior Random (1980) [ 仁科蒼一] エカルテ９号 - 機動戦士ガンダム特集号 - 無軌道戦士ランダム(1980)

 

One of the latest acquisitions from Yahoo! auctions, this looked particularly special, so I had to grab it. A very early Mobile Suit Gundam parody manga by Soichi Nishina called Orbitless Wanderer Random.

Soichi Nishina (仁科蒼一), famous for his gag manga as well as for his participation in Hideo Azuma's Cybele doujin series, created this around early to mid 1980. Nishina worked for Monthly OUT and Rendezvous Comics and created this as part of Ecarte's line up, of which he was founder & owner of. The doujin primarily makes fun of Mobile Suit Gundam and includes other parody works and mentions of Future Boy Conan, Zambot 3, Daitarn 3 and Danguard Ace.

This book is in horrible condition but is exceedingly rare, so I wanted to share it as soon as I possibly could. There may be more in the future if I'm able to source them. Ecarte Vol. 10, once its relaunch would be done (Nishina states that the original format was subject to change) would include more technical setting documents and explorations into the SF elements of Gundam, pre-dating possibly even Gunsight.

Hideo Azuma (吾妻 ひでお) draws Hachijou Shima (八丈志麻) in the back of this particular copy on the 2nd to final page.