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Welcome to the first monthly overview for The Stacks. I'd meant to start something like this up back when The Stacks launched, but put it off in favour of other site updates. With my pipeline currently static, now seems as good a time as any to start proper.

April 2025 was a slower month for The Stacks in terms of writing and archiving. My semester has been ramping up as it nears its completion, so there has been less time to pursue personal projects. It's also been a difficult month personally due to a rapid array of changes to my life that have left my mental health a little wobbly.

The quick and dirty rundown: 32 scans uploaded, two large parcels received with 84 items total in them, 2 articles posted, 71 items added to the magazine database, 20 auctions won with 57 items for a total bid cost of 79,366JPY. Shipping costs for April totalled 50,033JPY. That's all good but I also got another issue of Hustler: Hard Drive which I am most excited for!

April saw the return of a very good friend that had been out of my life for the past six years, so a lot of time was spent catching up with them. It came at a good time as most of my support network is currently out of the country or has moved to the other side of town. Those changes, alongside the aforementioned coursework, planning a wedding for July(!!), and applying for summer jobs are why there has been a slowdown. I am not able to promise anything for May. I was also afforded the opportunity to mess around more with my gender presentation this month which has been nice. It'll be a Hot Joey summer?

I acquired a new scanner (Fujitsu fi-7480) back in late March. I am in love with it and it has drastically sped up scanning (as well as how often I am cleaning the glass) and allowed me to non-destructively scan staple-bound materials. I got in touch with a print shop about chopping some Coin Journals to save me a couple hours which cost me $50CAD for 10 issues, but saved me at least four hours of debinding. This will be how I proceed for future Coin Journals.

Earlier this month it became apparent my current database solution (a big JSON file) is not tenable as the entries add up. I am in the process of migrating everything to an SQL database, which will require migrating my entire site over to a new host. I also uploaded an April Fools video on scanning magazines, it was kinda fun to make but was mostly an excuse to be on camera a bit more to get used to that.

Puke approached me late last month about publishing a guest article on The Stacks, and it was a delight to have their writing hosted here. If you have writing or research you would like to post online, please get in touch, I'd be happy to have it! Work aligned with my interests of adult games, coin-op, games history, gender, or art history are preferred, but I am open to pretty much whatever.

The physical stacks were reorganised and recatalogued this month, confirming we are now at roughly 400 items unscanned. This does not include most mooks, books, or American/European works.

With that all out of the way, let's look at what was scanned and archived this month.

Eight issues of Amusement Journal spanning 2003 to 2008 are up. I primarily focused on issues which covered Amusement Machine Show, Amusement Expo, and similar trade shows. This allows researchers to get the best possible overview for the associated years and lets us narrow down what issues to prioritise next.

Seven issues of Coin Journal from 1993 to 1996 also went up. These were done mostly linearly as I finish the issues I still have. Though we've acquired more since. It never ends.

Three issues of TV Gamer were archived alongside two GameWalker issues and a Jugemu (cheers to ozidual for directing me to some Jugemu auctions). These magazines are primarily aimed at the then-grown-up Famicom generation who were approaching their 30s. Older than young adult, if you will. They are focused more on the industry, less on the individual works. More interviews, less reviews. GameWalker No. 1 in particular has some Playdia coverage, a look at Yokohama Joypolis and Osaka Galbo, and an overview of Macintosh CD-ROM software hitting Japan.

Some more flyers and another Play Graph have gone up for Caitlyn's research needs with more coming in May.

Volume 2 of CG iCupid is up to supplement Rage_Beat's earlier upload of Volume 1 (we were unsure if it was a one-off or not).

The first Volume? Version? of ED Game Magazine (then Digital Heroes) did surprisingly well online as folks chortled at the stereotypical depictions of console fans. Hippon Super! and The Ichiban provided further not-young-adult coverage. gM also seems promising with its Shigeru Miyamoto and R4 dev-team interviews.

A bunch of SEGA and Saturn related materials came in, and so I've dabbled with Dengeki Sega EX Vol. 1 and Great Saturn Z's predecessor mook. Rounding out the 'for them' pile, Journey to GAMING, a type-in book by Micom, went up for the benefit of the type-in folks at Gaming Alexandria.

That leaves us with the 'for Joey' upload this month! Usually I'd do more, but it's been slow. I was extremely fortunate to acquire the premier issue of Adult PC Guide, which my fiancé hauled up to me during his March visit. The remaining issues of Adult PC Guide and Hustler: Hard Drive have been agonising to find as adult content isn't allowed on most auction sites and most people don't hold onto porn, especially not niche, technically not-X-rated porn. It warmed my heart immeasurably to see Frank Cifaldi of the Video Game History Foundation acknowledge and praise my work, as it is often thankless, especially on the adult side of things.

Joey's work preserving adult multimedia history continues to impress. This is very fringe stuff, and for obvious reasons doesn't have a high survival rate or very much historical participation from its creators.

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— Frank Cifaldi (@frankcifaldi.bsky.social) April 6, 2025 at 3:25 PM

That's it for April, until next month (or next article?), take care.