“The Kappa Kappa Butthole Anime Changed My Life!” A Sarazanmai Zine

UPDATE as of 9/22/23 : After more than a year of organizing and preparing, the zine is NOW AVAILABLE as a free PDF download on itch.io, or as a physical copy on storenvy. This has been a labor of love by 9 contributors, and I hope that people can enjoy!

I’m compiling a Zine with some friends, centered around Kunihiko Ikuhara and Teruko Utsumi’s 2019 anime Sarazanmai.

It will be full of art, memes, and personal writing about what this weird, incredibly unique little anime has meant to us. It’ll be available as a Free PDF, and possibly a (basic, cheaply produced) print version.

I’ve wanted to make this over the past year–the inspiration for this came from listening to an anime review podcast, where the hosts complained about not really being able to “get” the story. Which is perfectly fine, as it is indeed very weird and pulls from many different strange influences! However, they were also gracious enough to add that maybe it simply wasn’t For Them, and said as an aside “Maybe the Kappa Kappa Butthole Anime changed YOUR life, idk.” That silly turn of phrase stuck with me and was the seed for this project!

Despite many delays and distractions over the years, I’m happy to finally starting to put everything together. I’m very happy with the work that people have done, and can’t wait for more people to see!

If you’re interested, fill out this google contact form to be notified via email (or alternative contact method) when it’s ready! I’m hoping I can get this made by the end of the summer, and in time for SF Zinefest.