Smile Magazine - Y2K For The Youth
Smile Magazine was a magazine which started in 1998, aimed toward teenage girls.
It was created by Tokyopop, an originally American company that hosted thousands of manga and distributed countless anime & Asian films. They are said to be one of the pioneers of the manga market in North America. Since then, they have expanded globally, and currently hold their headquarters in Tokyo.
The magazine was originally supposed to be a mainstream girls magazine, similar to Japanese magazines "Seventeen" or "Popteen", just with manga added in. However, as time went by Smile Magazine started to take more and more of a manga-magazine approach, getting rid of many other features and sections. Some of the manga that Smile Magazine serialized included the Shōjo manga classic Sailor Moon series, Peach Girl, and Juline.
One of the most interesting factors of Smile Magazine was the aesthetic of the magazine. With cyberculture & Y2K vibes in the cover & sections, the magazine featured crazy graphics & visuals throughout. The colors and style make it almost hard to think that this magazine was aimed towards teenage girls into Shōjo manga. The magazine ran for roughly 4 years, before being discontinued in 2002.
Check out some of Smile Magazine's archive above, and get hit by a wave of Y2K nostalgia.
