Vol. 16 — Spring 1980

Vol. 16 contains news items regarding the recording of a new album (which would be The Game, as well as info about the Crazy Tour in the UK. There's also a translated letter from Brian.

The letters section contains some items about the April 25th, 1979 Budoukan concert that was recorded for TV—nearly a year later, it still hadn't been broadcast, and fans were getting annoyed. This prompted a letter-writing campaign to Nippon TV, who apparently answered that while they had originally planned to broadcast the show in the fall of 1979, they ultimately decided that Queen wasn't popular enough to have their own show and were waiting to splice the footage together with other acts before broadcasting. This, of course, enraged fans even more.

One fan letter complains about the title translation of Crazy Little Thing Called Love, which was A Desire Called Love in Japanese, saying it sounded like the name of a "third-rate porno". There is also a want ad for recording of NHK-FM's "BBC Queen Interview Series", which was apparently broadcast over several episodes of DJ Yoichi Shibuya's show in 1978. Given the timeframe, I'm assuming this was the band's interview with Tom Browne regarding News of the World, but I'm unsure.

The rock doujinshi frenzy seems to be cooling a bit by this time, as there are less and less independent unofficial fancircles and clubs listed in the backs of the official fanclub magazines. This issue only lists two compared to the dozens mentioned in issues from the mid-70s. The explosive popularity the band enjoyed in the 70s was dying down, sublimating into something quieter but longer-lasting. The rock angle of girls' mangaka and doujin was intense but relatively short-lived, and by 1980 the BL genre in general had expanded past the rock world.

There is an entire page of cute cut illustrations in the back, including a submission from known 1980s unofficial fanclub Queenie.

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