Super Rare Link to the Past Manga: Never Posted Online Before

 Ah, AH! I am so in love with how this happens. So if you saw the last post you'd know MiloScat wrote me about 3 old school Zelda mangas that have never even been online before. I really love them all but, what I am so incredibly in love with, is the fact that people are still finding and getting this stuff online exactly so it's never lost.

 
He sent me this LttP one from scans he made from the volume he located and is allowing me to host them on the site. (I'll get them added to the site-proper soon, right now they're in the flickr gallery.) He may even translate them eventually. I cleaned them up a bit and am so happy to be able share them here. It's a 39 page Link to the Past manga by Toshihiro Ono that he believes is a stand-alone work. That can seem a little confusing because it introduces itself in the middle of the game, and appears to have established characters, but the context of the text in the rest of the magazine implies it. Apparently, according to an interview, this was this guy's first published manga too! I think Link looks great in it and would have been very excited if he had done more Zelda stuff. The fairies, and especially the wide shot of the dungeon, are pretty awesome in my opinion.

So anyway, thank you Milo, for allowing all of us to enjoy this. After 30 years I'm surprised anyone still had a copy of this magazine. Thank you for locating it, importing it, and scanning it!

Absolutely Adorable Adventure of Link Manga-Short

Tumblr, Twitter, and Flickr user MiloScat wrote me about a Link to the Past, Link's Awakening, and this Adventure of Link manga- all of which I was completely unaware of.  I'm in love with each and everyone of them but this one is the absolute cutest thing ever. I'm posting about this one now because you can go read it in his Flickr album or find the original scans in Japanese on Ragey's site, here: randomhoohaas.flyingomelette.com. I can not thank Ragey enough for discovering this work and getting it online! It blows my mind that it could have been so easily lost forever but this person found it and helped bring it to all of us.

To know more about it, visit MiloScat's Tumblr. There's a lot more at each, site too, these guys are getting a ton of cool stuff online. (The others manga will hopefully come in a bit, I'll post more when the pages are cleaned up and if I have permission to add them.)

Credit: "Famicom Manga pack-in booklet included with the May 1987 Ninensei edition of Shogakukan’s Shogaku Gakushu Zasshi magazines. The raw scans come from Ragey; he also cleaned these up before I got to them! I took these and translated them into English with the help of Horseypope."

Added High-Res Book Illustrations from Futabasha Game Book Series: Legend of Zelda: Tryfoce of Gods

 Just added roughly 27 black and white illustrations from this Link to the Past novel called Futabasha Game Book Series: Legend of Zelda: Tryfoce of Gods, published in 1992. These are some of my absolute favorite pieces of art for the series. They hit many of the major moments and I think the style is so perfect and solid. The high res scans are in the flickr gallery, here.

Scanned by Melora of History of Hyrule.

Added High-Res Book Illustrations from Futabasha Fantasy Novel Series: Legend of Zelda

Just added roughly 14 color and black and white illustrations from this Link to the Past novel, with Hyrule Fantasy (Zelda1) art. It's called Futabasha Fantasy Novel Series: Legend of Zelda and was published in 1992. I love these, so much, they're incredible. The high res scans are in the flickr gallery, here.

Scanned by Melora of History of Hyrule.

Added High-Res Book Illustrations from Futabasha Fantasy Novel Series: Legend of Zelda 2

 Just added roughly 15 color and black and white illustrations from this Link to the Past novel called Futabasha Fantasy Novel Series: Legend of Zelda 2, published in 1992. It's not my favorite style, it's very different than the game, but it still has some pretty neat pieces. The high res scans are in the flickr gallery, here.

Scanned by Melora of History of Hyrule.

Added High-Res Book Illustrations from Link's Adventurous Quest: A Counterattack from Darkness

 Just added roughly 21 black and white illustrations from this Adventure of Link novel called Link's Adventurous Quest: A Counterattack from Darkness, published in 1987 by Futabasha. It's all pretty cute. The high res scans are in the flickr gallery, here.

Scanned by Melora of History of Hyrule.

Added High-Res Book Illustrations from The Adventure of Link: The Legend of the Black

Just added roughly 22 black and white illustrations from this Adventure of Link gamebook called The Adventure of Link: The Legend of the Black Triforce, published in 1987. I really like a ton of these. The high res scans are in the flickr gallery, here.

Scanned by Melora of History of Hyrule.

 

Added High-Res Book Illustrations from The Legend of Zelda: The Mirage Castle

Just added roughly 33 black and white illustration from the novel The Legend of Zelda: The Mirage Castle by Akio Higuchi and Yuko Tanaka, 1986, published by Futabasha. These are absolutely adorable. The cover and jacket has cool art in a completely different style and I wish we could have more work by that artist too. Find the high res images in the flickr gallery, starting here.

Scanned by Melora of History of Hyrule.

Added High-Res Book Illustrations from Adventure Hero's Book no. 10

Just added roughly 59 black and white illustrations from this Hyrule Fantasy and Adventure of Link novel called Adventure Hero's Books no. 10. Published in 1987 by Studio Hard. These have some pretty cool bad guy art and scenes in them even if they're not my favorite drawings of Link. They are completely worth checking out though!

High res scans are in the flickr gallery. I put them in the Original Legend of Zelda (Hyrule Fantasy) folder simply because more of the enemies in this are from that game.

Scanned by Melora of History of Hyrule 

I've been working on the site again

Long time, no see.  It's only been about 7 years and a couple of surgeries later! Well, the nostalgia bug bit and I decided to pick up some old projects that I never finished. But first, follow me on Twitter!

1. The official art gallery. Even with amazing newer books, like Art and Artifacts, which added art that had never been public before, a lot of old art is still missing from the internet. At least in a cohesive and easy to reference manner. So I decided to try to complete the gallery. I'm using the same Flickr account. For the past month I've been internally organizing files, scouring the web, and renaming and nit picking the gallery. Right now I'm focused on the 1st four games because they have the most art with odd and scattered sources. Once I'm done adding I'll need to go back and re-edit some files so that we can have one good version instead of 2-4 funky-in-different-ways versions.

Getting the lesser-seen official art online is why I started History of Hyrule in 2002, and here I am after all, unable to leave that task unfinished.

2. Getting the old official manga translated. It's so good and no one has picked it up in all this time. It's really bugging me. One volume is already 35 years old! We need this. So I'll be working on that too after I work on the gallery a bit more. But write me if you can translate, I'll switch gears if it means making this happen.

This is my fav, 4 part series of Legend of Zelda through the Adventure of Link. He has pink hair pre-LttP! And even rides a Loftwing!! (-cough- okay, parrot,) into battle against Ganon:

https://historyofhyrule.com/publications/manga_loz_en/index.html
https://historyofhyrule.com/publications/manga_aol_1/index.html
https://historyofhyrule.com/publications/manga_aol_2/index.html

https://historyofhyrule.com/publications/manga_aol_3/index.html

And this other 3 part Adventure of Link one that sticks incredibly close to the game, closer than any other manga. Don't want to play AoL but want to know what happens? Seriously, here you go:

https://historyofhyrule.com/publications/manga_aol_wan1_en/index.html
https://historyofhyrule.com/publications/manga_aol_wan2/index.html
https://historyofhyrule.com/publications/manga_aol_wan3/index.html

This tLoZ one is pretty cool too, it's almost like a game guide, but I wish Link wasn't so absurd looking. That's the only reason it's last, the rest of it is amazing:

https://historyofhyrule.com/publications/manga_loz_wan/index.html