Here are the 600dpi scans posted on archive.org
Here are the 600dpi scans posted on archive.org
A manga for the original Legend of Zelda
A 4koma manga for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Title: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time 4Koma Gag Battle
ゼルダの伝説 時のオカリナ 4コマギャグバトル 探検編
Artist or Circle: Anthology
Publisher: Kobunsha
Publish Dates: 2000-01-10 (First Edition) 2002-07-30 (3rd Edition)
3rd Edition ISBN4-334-80487-X / C9979
Other Possible Information
ISBN4-334-80561-2
Dates: 1999-12-16
Artist Information (Source)
Here are the 600dpi scans posted on archive.org
Any translations will be posted to this Flickr album for now.
I am super sad these never got popular. They're so awesome! I've had small scans of most of the pages on historyofhyrule.com since 2002-2004 and I haven't even seen so much as a meme from them. And they are so meme worthy! Only 1 out of roughly 26 Zelda 4komas have been translated so, if you would like to translate this, even just sections of it, please go ahead and let me know!
If you use these pages please always link back to the main website though, so people can find more information and rare materials, or even help me find more!
Here are examples and info on the other 4koma, they're for the games LttP, LA, OoT, MM, WW, OoA, and OoS. I will be scanning them all in the coming weeks: Here's what you can expect to see.
Other Keywords: The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons, ゼルダの伝説 ふしぎの木の実 大地の章, Zeruda no Densetsu: Fushigi no Ki no Mi: Daichi no Shō, tLoZ, LoZ, Oracles, OoS, 600ppi, RAW, RAWS, scan, scans, high res, high rez, high resolution, Link, Nintendo, Gameboy, book, videogame, Comics, Manga, 4-koma, Yonkoma, 4コマ漫画, The Legend of Zelda, Oracles, ゼルダの伝説, ふしぎの木の実, 4koma,
Here are the 600dpi scans posted on archive.org
I've started scanning the 26ish volumes of Legend of Zelda 4-Koma and I'm actually going to post large versions of it, which I usually don't do, but it's only because I think the chances of it having a market to be republished are pretty slim. I'm trying to make sure I support publishers but, also, it's a shame something disappears because it's been unavailable for decades so I'm trying to figure out the balance there.
Any translations will be posted to this Flickr album for now.
Artist Information (Source)
Any translations will be posted to this Flickr album for now.
I am super sad these never got popular. They're so awesome! I've had small scans of most of the pages on historyofhyrule.com since 2002-2004 and I haven't even seen so much as a meme from them. And they are so meme worthy! Only 1 out of roughly 26 Zelda 4komas have been translated so, if you would like to translate this, even just sections of it, please go ahead and let me know!
I thought the Adventure of Link guide I posted a few short weeks ago was going to be the best thing I found in a long time since it has actual official enemy art that was completely unknown. I mean: It is literally its last known location/source it. No one outside of Japan ever saw it. In fact it only ever appeared once in an official famicom magazine that the guide was a collection of. Scans of that appeared just days before I was ready to upload my own. Very cool timing. Well it looks like we have several mind-blowing finds this year already:
This guide is the original Japanese version of the famous official US Tips and Tactics guide and completes some sets of VERY famous art by filling in missing art. Before now we never really knew exactly what the source for it was either, except for this name. Tips and Tactics calls it "Hissyou Hintbon." This Japanese version was published by Wanpakku comics, which is a publisher under Tokuma Shoten. May 25, 1986 (though sometimes I see February listed.) Tips and Tactics was officially published by Nintendo of America in 1987.
Credits from the back pages of the official Nintendo of America guide, Tips and Tactics
If you are unfamiliar with Tips and Tactics, here is an example of how close the US version copies the Japanese one. (Below.) The notable differences are the updated screenshots of things like the enemies (the Japanese guide uses some earlier development screenshots that changed before release,) the outside jacket and its original art are different, once piece of missing art that was overlaid on the map model on the inside is missing, and then the manga explaining how to use the removable map is missing. Which, coincidentally, is the page where the art of female Link is. Obviously it would have been a lot of work to redo, or heavily edit, the manga for a Western audience that was, at the time, completely unfamiliar with that kind of layout: so it makes editorial sense that it was simply removed from the final US version.
I also like that it shows that NoA also obviously got all of the art from this guide because they moved Link around on the image of the map.
Maybe the easiest thing to explain should come first: This has the 2, known, missing pieces of art for the pink-haired female Link and fairy. The others in the set were made famous by KazzyKazy's viral post and I found that volume and scanned those pieces earlier this year so we could have 2400dpi archival versions online. In his thread he mentions finding a YouTube video of someone's childhood scrapbook and how it had another 2 pieces of art from the set in it. In all that time since posting no one else had been able to find it or figure it out. Time for a good hunt! I bought every Shonen Captain from that year (if I couldn't find someone who owned an issue to confirm) and even a couple of extra volumes that looked a little promising. There was nothing else about her. Me and a couple of other very amazing and helpful people were searching every picture in old auctions for other listings even just to try to find a magazine with the same numerical page font or Zelda features on the same pages. One of the people asked the YouTuber; they couldn't remember either. Someone even offered to go to some libraries in Japan and look through their collections, but they had to cut their trip short. Nothing but dead ends. I figured I was only going to find it by a random stroke of luck. And that is exactly what happened. Now we have the full, known set, of 8.
Itoh often gets credited for it in the US because of the way Tips and Tactics phrases things (below.) Since the credits in both this guide and the Tips and Tactics guide also always confused me a little bit I went ahead and asked Yoshimiru about it and he confirmed that he did the drawing and linework and that he would often ask Itoh to be the cel colorist. (Painter/Colorist would mean he did not do the linework but filled in the color based on directions.) You can search around online and see that worked on a few projects with the same kind of joint credit. It appears that they were both in Work House together and this is where Yoshimiru would pass the cel line work over to Itoh. (Work House was a place an editorial company that would allow students to rent space. This is also where Yoshimiru was personally discovered by Iwata)
Publication credits from the front of Tips and Tactics.
This is what confused me too. From these descriptions I had thought that maybe Yoshimiru had just taken the photos of the cels and that Itoh did the rest. I'm so glad to now know for sure that Yoshimiru was the artist.
Image of the credits from this guide
-Cel / セル画- Original drawing / 原画: ☆Yoshimiru / ☆よしみる (Metal Slader Glory)
Cel work(s) / セルワーク: Hideaki Ito / 伊藤秀明 (the same person that did the cover art for Aretha II. Source)
Illustrations / 力ット: Susumu Kobayashi / こばやし将, Nobuyoshi Takagi / 高木信義, Narumi Tanaka / 田中成美
