Ongaku Otaku was one of our favorite underground music 'zines from the 1990's,a super-thick journal published annually by Mason Jones of Subarachnoid Space/Charnel Music, and subtitled The Magazine Of Japanese Independant Music. Each issue weighed in at over 125 pages on thick paper stock with heavy glossy covers, and each is filled with all kinds of superbly written and exhaustive articles on the Japanese grind/avant/no wave/noise/extreme culture, including discographies and footnotes alongside terrific graphic design, artwork, and loads of killer photos. Ongaku Otaku stopped publishing after the 4th issue that was released in 2001, but this fanzine remains not only the best English publication covering the vibrant Japanese underground ever published, but also one of the finest examples of high-quality zine culture to emerge from the 1990's. We just got our hands on some back copies of issues #2-4 of Ongaku Otaku excavated from the shadowy corners of the Automatism Press closets, as these are highly recommended documents for anyone that are as obsessed with extreme Japanese music as we are!

Issue #3 of Ongaku Otaku is from 1998, and again is jam packed with writing, a total who's who of cutting edge Japanese music. This issue has detailed articles and interviews with Grind Orchestra, Ruins, Seiichi Yamamoto (Boredoms, Omoide Hatoba), MSBR, Kaneko Jutoku, Cornelius, Coa, Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her, Gaji, Sugar Plant, Melt Banana, Shonen Knife, Ghost, Moga The Y5, robot sculptor and visual artist Kenji Yanobe, and a highly detailed tour diary of Mason Jones' solor tour of Japan. In addition, there are the expected TONS of lengthy, detailed CD, cassette tape, and vinyl reviews, assessments of cult Japanese cinema, video releases, and Anime, Japanese fanzine reviews, some killer Manga, a lengthy, detailed article on the different varieties of Japanese junk food, and more. Essential for Japanese music fanatics!