CoroCoro Comics is known for its coverage of the Pocket Monsters movies. From the late 1990s up until the mid 2010s or so the magazine was used as kind of the centerpiece of the films' coverage with news getting announced there first and then making its way to other media outlets from there.

Since I live in Japan I have access to bookstores that sell old issues of CoroCoro Comics. They're hard to find but every now and then you'll get lucky enough to come across a Mandarake or a Book-Off store that has an old issue of CoroCoro Comics from the 90s. I've managed to find a few of these precious time capsules from the summer of 1999 and so today I thought we'd take a look at what one of the biggest publicity machines this franchise has was doing to promote Revelation Lugia.

CoroCoro Comics - July 1999

The July 1999 issue of CoroCoro Comics went on sale June 15th, 1999.


The big thing about this issue was that it came with a booklet that contains the manga adaptation of Revelation Lugia. Unfortunately my copy of the magazine's missing this booklet (the picture you see below was grabbed off a Google Image Search) so a review of that manga will have to come later.


Click on each image to view a larger verson.

The magazine proper begins its coverage with information on both the video games Pocket Monsters Gold / Silver coverage (which was due to come out November 21st) and the movie Revelation Lugia. For the purposes of this article I'll just focus on the Revelation Lugia coverage.


Translations of the content in the article on the right there can be found here.

Next up is a two-page spread announcing the winners of a contest where readers were asked to send in their designs for 1999's ANA Pokémon Jet. The winner on the left there is Shouta Satou, a fourth grader from Chiba Prefecture. Mr. Satou's design (top) was transformed into the actual jet you see below it.


The following page showcases a bunch of the merchandise being made available to commemorate the new movie. Stuffed animals, figurine,s hats, watches...there was quite a lot!


The next movie-related ad in the magazine is this ad for the Carddass Pocket Monsters Animation Collection Part Six, the sixth wave of cards in the Pocket Monsters Carddass series. Part Six enters the Orange Islands portion of the TV series and also includes cards based on the movie Revelation Lugia.


As we get toward the end of the magazine we see a bunch of ads for next month's issues of CoroCoro Comics and CoroCoro Special.


Finally, the magazine ends with comments from the various manga artists who contributed to the issue. This includes quotes from Kousaku Anakubo, who does the Pocket Monsters manga, and Toshio Tanigami, who did the Revelation Lugia adaptation.

CoroCoro Comics - August 1999

The August 1999 issue of CoroCoro Comics went on sale on July 15th, 1999.


When you open the magazine you're immediately greeted by an insert that contains two Pokémon Trading Card Game cards.

Front	Back

After that is the month's coverage on the new movie Revelation Lugia.


Translations of the content in the article on the right there can be found here.

We then get into a page that talks about a Mew card giveaway before taking a look at this month's new toys.


Next up is information on some Pokémon cards you can get for riding on the ANA Pokémon Jet. If you skip ahead a little bit you'll also see an ad for Pocket Monster gashapon toys.


There was also a stamp rally in 1999 just like there had been the previous two years. Information about participating stations is all listed on these three pages.


After that are ads for a Pokémon theme park attraction and the CD release for the opening and ending themes to Pikachu's Exploration Party.


And now, even more toy ads!


And a list of movie theaters that were playing Revelation Lugia.


And we end the issue with ads for upcoming magazines TV-kun, a Revelation Lugia mook, and the next month's issue of CoroCoro Comics.