Never For Ever - Japan First Issue Cassette

The first issue Japanese cassette release of Never For Ever features the same UK artwork on the front, but with some added eye catching graphics. I'm pretty sure that my scanner isn't doing this any justice at all, but hopefully you can see how fantastic it looks. What I particularly like about this one is that snippets of the front artwork have also been incorporated into both spines of the insert. Added to the fact that Nick Price did some pretty amazing art for this cover to begin with, this is easily my favourite Japanese cassette insert.

Like the Kick Inside cassette, the cassette shell for Never For Ever is also a sort of beige colour with JAPAN stamped directly into the cassette shell. I cropped the cassette shell for these to concentrate more on the actual labels for two reasons: The Japanese characters are small, and I also don't have the best scanner in the world at the moment - so I wanted to show them as well as I possibly can. They're pretty similar to the Kick Inside ones.

This release also originally came with a double-sided Japanese/English text lyric sheet. It's a really long strip of folded paper, which I had to scan and chop into sections, just like I had to do with the Kick Inside cassette - otherwise you wouldn't be able to read any of it. I also had to darken it up considerably as it really doesn't scan well at all. The paper is very thin, like newsprint paper, and the actual print tends to be pretty light in some cases. Apologies also for my wonky scanning skills on this, but it's all there.

Japanese cassettes tend to be on the scarce side these days and can get a bit costly when they do turn up. Personally I think the older ones are worth collecting just for the inserts alone.