Comic BomBom

Comic BomBom (コミックボンボン, Komikku Bonbon) was a monthly Japanese children's manga magazine published by Kodansha and aimed at elementary school boys.

The magazine also contributed greatly to the development of Mobile Suit Variation, and was said to have value as a Gundam reference material, with Ace Pilot Retsuden being particularly highly rated.

In addition, while many Real Robot anime were created under the influence of Gundam, Fang of the Sun Dougram and Armored Trooper Votoms were also serialized in manga form, and plastic models also appeared in Plamo-Kyoshiro and in special feature articles.

The magazine continued to create a boom by serializing features and manga based on popular franchises such as Transformers, SD Gundam, Mega Man, Super Mario, and Godzilla.

The specific years vary from generation to generation, but the golden years include the magazine's launch when the media franchising of Mobile Suit Variation was being carried out, the late 1980s to early 1990s, when circulation was said to have been highest due to the SD Gundam boom, and the mid-1990s, when manga with a higher target age range such as Onsen Gappadonba Caparante Densetsu were being produced and when the magazine covered fanatical subjects such as Neon Genesis Evangelion, American comic books (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, X-Men, etc.

From the mid-1990s onward, rival magazine CoroCoro was a major contributor to the Pokémon boom by launching tie-ins from the time of its release, and doubled its circulation in 1996 from the previous year.

BomBom was far behind CoroCoro, which continued to have other strong tie-ins, such as Mini 4WD, B-Daman, Hyper Yo-Yo, Beyblade, Duel Masters, and Mushiking: The King of Beetles, in terms of circulation.

In response, BomBom also took the tie-in route in a losing effort, with titles such as Beast Wars: Transformers, Medabots, Robopon, Crush Gear, Daikaijū Monogatari: The Miracle of the Zone, and Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children.

Ikeda, the editor-in-chief at the time, said that the change of serialized works was made in order to reduce the fanatical elements that might affect the magazine itself and its target audience.

However, as mentioned above, there were successful tie-in manga and other products, and some argue that the golden age was around 2000, when Medabots, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Children, and Cyborg Kuro-chan were all in vogue.

In late June 2007, manga author Jun Ishikawa made a statement on Mixi and in a diary on his website suggesting that the magazine would cease publication.