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Sunday, August 29, 2021

8 Out of Print Volumes of Zelda Manga are Going to be Re-published! (Updates)

Update 2022-04-17: Yes, they are taking a while but the publisher is still releasing issues every month as promised. 


There's so much info below but first: I want everyone to make a really big push to see all of these localized in other languages by the publishers. I led that same kind of push for years, from History of Hyrule back in the early 2000's, to make that happen with Akira Himekawa's manga, and then over a decade later, when we got word Nintendo was finally going to be doing a real artbook, I worked so hard, and led an even bigger fan effort, to get the hype and interest going to get that localized in the US and other languages as well. They did and it ended up topping the best selling charts on Amazon and the New York Times. (It even beat out Twilight for a while.) Job well done, everyone!


And here's the reason: if these do well then other companies that produced a lot of old Zelda manga, like Enix, will hopefully be encouraged to do ebook releases of their out of print content too. We need to make that happen! If these do well publishers might even pay more artists to do more Zelda works. So let's get hyped about it again guys and when these drop let's hit the ground running.


To do this let's do what my friends and I did for the Himekawa manga and Hyrule Historia. Let's get some translations done so we can all read along with the books when they come out, then write all the companies like Nintendo, Viz, and Darkhorse about getting the rights, start campaigns, and when those Japanese ebook sales jump up because we pound that "buy it" button: I will bet you they'll do it.


This also means I need help finding translators. I have 600dpi scans made specifically for translation, they are not for distribution though and are not posted publicly right now. I have generally only hosted pages on the site that are large enough to comprehend but not big enough to discourage people from wanting actual copies if they become available for sale. More on that needed translation help below.

Example of the scans for translations


Now, back to the meat of it: One Pack Comics, also known as "Wanpakku Comics" or わんぱっくコミック, was a serialized monthly manga magazine that I believe ran from 1985 to 1989. As far as I know, in it's history, it produced 3 different Zelda series for Hyrule Fantasy, (the original Legend of Zelda,) and the Adventure of Link. I'll post info on them below. They were collected into 7 volumes, with the 8th and last volume of Ran Maru's Adventure of Link manga never officially being turned into a book because the publisher closed right after the artist finished. Those last 7 issues, that would have been the final volume, can only be found online because someone Xeroxed the pages from the final year of the magazine to make extra copies. And thank goodness they did even though they're not great. Someone else later scanned them. If you've seen the popular GTV Japan YouTube video, it's using those same scanned Xeroxs that I've had on my site for around a decade. (By the way, I love his videos. I do technically disagree with how he interpreted the ending though, we had a nice conversation about it, but you know how fans will have different takes: I just think SPOILER it's clear Zelda comes back to life at the end and that it's part of the main story, not tacked on. The Salamander that dies in the same place her body falls into, comes back at the end, with the same flute that fell in too, and then we see a female with Zelda's stature come out of that same lake .Link threw the Triforces into it as well. It seems very clear to me what happens)


I have been trying to track down those 7 magazine issues for around a decade now. Here's the covers and info on them. (I do still want them.) The ever-awesome Zelda collector, Ikhana, was helping me find them, (she actually found April's issue for me and I was able to buy it, it's being shipped as we speak. She's so good at this!) but in the process she found a press release from August 12, 2021 that stated Tokuma Shoten Publishing Co., Ltd. (株式会社徳間書店, Kabushiki gaisha Tokuma Shoten), One Pack's parent company, was going to be re-release all of the manga at a rate of roughly 5 issues a month (mid month) starting on August 16th. Which was just a few days ago. You will be able to purchase these ebook volumes on these platforms:

  • Kindleストア(Amazon)
  • 楽天Kobo電子書籍ストア
  • BOOK☆WALKER
  • honto
  • ブックライブ
  • コミックシーモア
  • ebookjapan
  • Renta!(パピレス)
  • DMMブックス

The first 5 volumes have been released, as promised, but they are not for the Legend of Zelda, they're just some of the many other works One Pack supported. But I am happy to see it's really happening. I'm not sure when they'll get to the Zelda ones, but it's promising to see that they're already rapidly releasing things. Again, they will release 5 volumes in the middle of every month.

Out of those stores I'm only familiar with Amazon.jp. To find the ebook releases you'll want the keyword わんぱっくコミック (One Pack's name in Japanese) or just use this link.

Now, what are the 3 Legend of Zelda series to expect, the 8 volumes:


My all-time-favorite Zelda manga is in this batch. A total of 4 volumes it was created by Ran Maru and ran from 1986 to 1988. It starts with one volume for Hyrule Fantasy/The Original Legend of Zelda and continues on with 3 volumes for the Adventure of Link. (The last one was the one I was talking about that was not collected into a book though.) One of the reasons I love it is for how the personalities of Link and Zelda are portrayed. They remind me of what I actually want from the games. The 2nd reasons is for all the firsts in this series: It's the first time we see things that appear in later games. A few small examples would be: Link with hot pink hair, Link riding into battle on a giant bird, his spin attack, and we even see Zelda using magic to transform into a male character in the intent to fool Ganon's minions to buy time while Link is missing in action. And the series is dark. It's actually very very dark.



The 1st chapter is in English.

UPDATE: FULLY TRANSLATED!!



The first chapter is in English! But we need to have the rest finished

UPDATE: FULLY TRANSLATED
but being revised, I do not have it yet





FULLY TRANSLATED!!


Now for the other 4 volumes:


The Adventure of Link, Volume 1, by Daisuke Shigoto

This is a pretty amazing work. While it has some original elements it's acts as a game guide for the Adventure of Link. It's really worth checking out.

WE NEED A TRANSLATOR FOR THIS
Someone was translating this with my scans for another site but it looks like they're MIA 



This is a continuation of volume one, it was just taken over by a different artist.

WE NEED A TRANSLATOR FOR THIS




The Legend of Zelda by Kobayashi Susumu
This is one volume that covers the whole first game and even acts as a complete game guide. The art in this is actually really good, this artist also did work that appeared in official Nintendo publications. 

WE NEED A TRANSLATOR FOR THIS

Again, I would like to try to find a translator for each volume if possible, to get these done quickly. I do have 600dpi scans to help you read them and we just need to make a script so people can read along with the eventual ebooks. Contact me if you have actual experience translating from Japanese to English.
melorasworld@gmail.com

And after this: We have around 35 other volumes of Zelda manga, 4koma, and novels that still need to be translated! I'm not kidding! There's so many no one has ever done.

Follow me on Twitter @historyofhyrule if you want the most current news and updates.
And I'll be on a backpacking trip on Monday-Wednesday so forgive me if I can't respond until then.





Saturday, August 28, 2021

New English Translation: LttP Manga-short: Quark and the Fairy Queen by Toshihiro Ono


 A while back I posted about this super rare one-shot Link to the Past manga that @miloscat found and got online. I cleaned it up a little and with the help of Horseypope they've now translated it into English and gotten the full translation online. So check out their site and find out about it here!


In the meantime, I know it looks like I haven't been doing much but I promise I've been working hard, I can't wait to post more!

Saturday, August 14, 2021

UPDATED 2022-06-06. The 60+ Out-of-Print Zelda Publications I'll be Scanning to Preserve


Hey everyone! I'm still looking for people who would be willing to help translate the old Zelda manga and maybe even the Japanese novels. The truth is that it's harder than it looks so, if you're not advanced, it's going to wear on you. But it's tragic some of this hasn't been translated for 35 years now so, if you think you can help, please contact me at melorasworld@gmail.com

So, anyway, I know it looks like I haven't been doing much since the tail end of May 2021 but that's only partially true. In the summer I do take off from civilization to backpack in the wilderness but, in the downtime, I've been connecting with other fans and helping get material to people who need it for their own projects and connecting with people who are helping with some of History of Hyrule's. There are so many amazing people out there that we have a lot to thank for and I can't wait to share more about. I also did a guest spot on Sacred Realms Podcast where we talked about Zelda art, it was so much fun, be sure to check them out. I've also started making more archival scans of all the old Japanese publications.

Here's a list of what I'll be scanning that I'll keep updated! This is DONE!

Manga:

  1. manga_loz_en DONE! 1/60 (Uploaded) Re-scanned at 1200dpi
  2. manga_aol_1 DONE! 2/60 (Uploaded) Redo?
  3. manga_aol_2 DONE! 3/ 60 (Uploaded) Redo?
  4. manga_aol_3 WANTED! (UploadedI do not have this, it's so rare! It can only be found in the February through August, 1988, One Pack magazine issues. I'm told they went out of business right after this so it was never collected in a volume like the others. I'd pay around $400 for each issue. Contact me if you think you can help me, the internet in general, find and preserve this rare piece of history. I currently have February and April's issues but need the other 5.
  5. manga_loz_wan DONE! 9/60 (Uploaded)
  6. manga_lttp1 DONE! 14/60 (Uploaded)
  7. manga_lttp2 DONE! 15/60 (Uploaded)
  8. manga_lttp3 DONE! 16/60 (Uploaded)
  9. manga_la1 DONE! 10/60 (Uploaded)
  10. manga_la2 DONE! 12/60 (Uploaded)
  11. manga_old_loz_trans DONE! 44/60 (Uploaded)
  12. manga_old_aol DONE! 45/60 (Uploaded)
  13. manga_aol_wan1_en DONE! 4/60 (Uploaded) Redo?
  14. manga_aol_wan2 DONE! 5/60 (Uploaded) Redo?
  15. manga_aol_wan3 DONE! 6/60 (Uploaded) Redo?
  16. guide_manga_multi (this is a guide, I will do it later)
  17. manga_lttp_zalda DONE! 46/60 (Uploaded) 
  18. manga_loz_13 DONE! 31/60 (Uploaded)
  19. manga_lttp_dbz1 DONE! 17/60 (Uploaded)
  20. manga_lttp_dbz2 DONE! 19/60 (Uploaded)
  21. manga_lttp_dbz3 DONE! 18/60 (Uploaded)
  22. manga_lttp_dbz4 DONE! 20/60 (Uploaded)
I'm not doing the Himekawa manga because it's all still in print so please support them like I have always asked people to do. Like I really want a Breath of the Wild manga by them so sales need to be strong!

4Koma
  1. 4koma1 DONE! 7/60 (Uploaded)
  2. 4koma2 DONE! 8/60 (Uploaded)
  3. 4koma3 DONE! 22/60 (Uploaded)
  4. 4koma4 DONE! 23/60 (Uploaded)
  5. 4koma5 DONE! 24/60 (Uploaded)
  6. 4koma6 DONE! 25/60 (Uploaded)
  7. 4koma7 DONE! 26/60 (Uploaded)
  8. 4koma8 DONE! 27/60 (Uploaded)
  9. 4koma_la_kei DONE! 38/60 (Uploaded)
  10. 4koma_la_kou DONE! 39/60 (Uploaded)
  11. 4koma_action1 DONE! 36/60 (Uploaded)
  12. 4koma_action2 DONE! --/-- (UploadedI have this now but didn't know if I would find it so I have someone else's 300dpi scans uploaded
  13. 4koma_action3 DONE! 37/60 (Uploaded)
  14. 4koma_lttp_kou DONE! 35/60 (Uploaded)
  15. 4koma_mm_enix DONE! 28/60 (Uploaded)
  16. 4koma_mm_kou DONE! 29/60 (Uploaded)
  17. 4koma_ooa_kou  DONE! 40/60 (Uploaded)
  18. 4koma_oos_kou  DONE! 41/60 (Uploaded)
  19. 4koma_oracle_kou  DONE! 42/60 (Uploaded)
  20. 4koma_oot1 DONE! 32/60 (Uploaded)
  21. 4koma_oot2 DONE! 30/60 (Uploaded)
  22. 4koma_oot_bou DONE! 21/60 (Uploaded)
  23. 4koma_oot_fut DONE! 33/60 (Uploaded)
  24. 4koma_oot_kou DONE! 13/60 (Uploaded)
  25. 4koma_oot_tan DONE! 34/60 (Uploaded)
  26. 4koma_ww_jp  DONE! 43/60 (Uploaded)
Novels and Other Books:
  1. book_blacktriforce DONE! 47/60 (Uploaded)
  2. book_novel_aol DONE! 49/60 (Uploaded)
  3. book_novel_loz DONE! 50/60 (Uploaded)
  4. book_novel_lttp DONE! 51/60 (Uploaded)
  5. book_novel_lttp2 DONE! 52/60 (Uploaded)
  6. book_novel_lttp3 DONE! 48/60 (Uploaded)
  7. book_adventure10 DONE! 11/ 60 (Uploaded)
  8. artbook_terada
  9. guide_zeldabox
  10. guide_lttp_np -Done (Uploaded) but redo it with a book with better color
  11. guide_lttp_de
  12. guide_la_np
  13. guide_la_de
  14. guide_beno DONE! by Annon (Uploaded) 300dpi, not 600
  15. artbook_z_collection DONE! 53/60 (Uploaded)
  16. artbook_z_collection (2)
  17. artbook_z_collection (3)

Other Scans I've made:

Other Guides: I have more than a few I'll be fully scanning but they're last on the list because, besides the art, it's usually just game help information in them. But it would be nice to have them preserved regardless!


This is an example of what I'll be doing when I say archival scan project:

An old 600dpi scan from the site:


New 600dpi scan with pages removed from the binding and a dark backing to prevent image bleed-through:
The binding glue on many of the old books is falling apart, so this isn't particularly painful to do, but the deeper tears near the binding are where it has turned into a concrete resin and absorbed the paper into itself so there's a little bit of patching that needs to be done.


Repaired image:


Further cleaned and almost complete: