I’m on record as a booster of the 1993 live-action Mario film. It’s got great effects and design, fun performances, and a fascinating reinterpretation of the Mario world and characters. So when I found references to the movie in various manga, I knew I wanted to translate them and bring them to a wider audience.
This package is a collection of pages from various manga sources: two 4koma gag strips, an excerpt from Yukio Sawada’s Super Mario-kun, and several sections from Kazuki Motoyama’s KC Deluxe Mario manga run. I’ve cleaned the scans and translated all text into English, while localising game and character names. I also inserted handy intermissions providing context for each of the pages as they come up.
Translating humour is always tricky but even if the jokes don’t land, at least we’ve got some amazing depictions of Bob Hoskins, the animatronic Yoshi, Dennis Hopper, etc. to look at. It’s interesting too seeing how the characters within the manga react to the existence of the movie and alternate versions of themselves; there’s a few different takes on this throughout.
Anyway please enjoy, there’s more information and credits in the images. If you find any more references to the movie in any manga source, please let me know and I’ll gladly add to this collection!
Just in time for Kerstmis (as the Dutch call it), here’s two short comics from the Dutch edition of Club Nintendo magazine. This version of Nintendo’s official magazine shared a lot of content with other European editions. In fact after translating the first image I realised that it was already printed in the UK edition, but what the heck, here it is anyway. I’m pretty sure the second image has not been available in English before, though!
Thanks to Geoffrey de Vlugt for uploading the magazine scans here, and to my friend Dangermouse for some translation assistance.
I’ve been collecting video game comics for a while now. (I mean adaptations and spin-offs that the license holder puts on paper, not webcomics that riff on games.) Most of them are old and out of print, so I have a large library of scans on my computer. After a particularly choice source for old manga scans (abusuzuki) went down, I figured I should upload everything I got from there… and everything else, too, so others can enjoy it.
So I went to the effort of organising my file labyrinth and getting it in a presentable state. The result is this folder, which you should feel free to browse. There’s lots of Rockman, Mario, and Zelda stuff as well as the combined efforts of the German Club Nintendo scanlation projects, which I was one of. But tons of other stuff too: rare comics, Rare comics, promotional tie-ins, gag manga, fan translations, lots of Nintendo material. It’s mostly officially licensed too. Disclaimer: it’s focused around the game series that I’m interested in. If you don’t find what you’re looking for, sorry about that. I also apologise for being lax about attribution, but it’s not always possible.
And please share this link, I want this to be a reliable source for people looking for comics based on their favourite video games, so they don’t have to work as hard as I did. Ok, here’s the link:
Thanks to Number One Lufia Fan Sinrevi for scanning these pages from various Estpolis books and guides. Here we have some 3koma (3 panels as opposed to the usual 4), 4 of them relating to Estpolis Denki/Lufia & The Fortress of Doom and 6 for Estpolis Denki 2/Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals/Lufia.
Knowledge of the games probably helps and knowledge of Japanese culture and language is also useful for a couple of these: for example, knowing how strict they are with sorting waste is important for the gag with Lexis, and one joke is simply untranslatable due to a distinctly Japanese pun (so I sort of left it and explained it in a sidebar note). Also, the North American version of Lufia 1 has a stuffed pig item which in the Japanese version is a monkey.
Anyway I translated these into English myself so that Western Lufia fans could appreciate them. Please share them! Remember, read right to left. And if you know about any more comics you’d like me to translate, let me know!
Hello video game comic fans, I’ve been talking to another scanlator recently and we might be doing a collaboration soon. So look forward to that. To share with them, I uploaded all the comics I’d translated to one place for easier access. Why I didn’t do this sooner I don’t know. Oh right, laziness.
Anyway if you too want to download all the stuff I’ve done at once, just go here. I’ll update it whenever I do new stuff too, as long as I remember. It’s not in order of when I did it so expect some inconsistency in quality.
It’s mostly the German Club Nintendo magazine comics, plus some fan comics from the Spanish Hobby Consolas, the recent Castlevania official 4koma, and some old Super Mario-kun bits.
Thanks to Shizumon and the other mangaka, Konami, Castlevania Realm, Castlevania Wiki, and my friends who supported this endeavour. Please share this post around to any fans you know!
[Comic] Pachislot Akumajo Dracula III official 4koma, unofficial scanlation
For my final Castlevania comic release, here’s my translations of the 4koma that were published on the official site of Pachislot Akumajo Dracula III. This is the third slot machine game based on the Castlevania series, this time set during Castlevania III using Trevor’s Curse of Darkness design, and guest-starring Alucard with a new 3D model inspired by his Symphony of the Night look, and a brand new look for Sypha. It’s still a fairly exploitative gambling machine, though.
But! We got some good gags out of it. After skipping the second game, Shizumon is back with some nice comics. Thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving them. I think Dracula is singing the theme song of the game in the first strip (there’s some impressive production values with these; each of the three has a full soundtrack release), which I chose to leave in Japanese because the song itself is and because it would have been really hard to change it all; besides it doesn’t need to be translated for the joke to work. Right? Anyway enjoy, and stay tuned for a final post linking to all my Castlevania scanlations in case you missed any.
[Comic] Pachislot Akumajo Dracula official 4koma, unofficial scanlation
Konami has been cutting back on real games and focusing on gambling. But they still produced some comics even for a Castlevania-themed slot machine. This is a slots game with interactive cinematic scenes, some of which include gratuitous erotic content, based on Castlevania: Curse of Darkness (Trevor Mode). The new character Angela supports Trevor and heals him when necessary.
These Shizumon comics were on the game’s official site in Japanese, and I’ve translated them. They used some obscure phrases related to Japanese gambling so translation was difficult! Luckily most of the cutscenes it references can be seen in its trailer. Thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving the raw comics.
[Comic] Castlevania: Curse of Darkness official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 2
Again the 10-photo limit means I have to split this up. These comics by Shizumon originally appeared in Japanese on the official Curse of Darkness website for Japan, and I’ve translated them. Thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving them. Part 1 here.
I love the idea that Isaac doesn’t normally have tattoos, Dracula just drew them on for a laugh. Or St Germain regretting his time powers.
[Comic] Castlevania: Curse of Darkness official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 1
Again the 10-photo limit means I have to split this up. These comics by Shizumon originally appeared in Japanese on the official Curse of Darkness website for Japan, and I’ve translated them. Thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving them.
My name for Part 1 of this comics set is “Hector mistreats and is mistreated by his Innocent Devils”. Poor Mr. Fairy.
[Comic] Castlevania: Harmony of Despair official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 2
I can only post 10 at a time, and there’s 11 of these, so here’s the last 5 (first 6 here). As with other Castlevania games, there was a set of 4koma by Shizumon published on the official Japanese Harmony of Despair website. I wanted to read them too, so I translated them. Alucard is great, and I love the surprise return of silly old Julius.
[Comic] Castlevania: Harmony of Despair official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 1
I can only post 10 at a time, and there’s 11 of these, so here’s the first 6. As with other Castlevania games, there was a set of 4koma by Shizumon published on the official Japanese Harmony of Despair website. I wanted to read them too, so I translated them. I love slow-reaction-Soma.
[Comic] Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 2
Following Part 1, here all the comics from Portrait of Ruin’s official Japanese site by our old favourite Shizumon. These comics were only available in Japanese, so I’ve translated them into English. Jonathan and Wind are amazing. Thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving the original strips.
[Comic] Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 1
Like Dawn of Sorrow, Portrait of Ruin had on its official Japanese website a selection of gag comics; some by the regular artist Shizumon but also others (along with some other illustrations that are worth checking out). The strips have been archived here, but none of them were available in English, so I’ve translated them. These are the non-Shizumon comics, as well as two bonus mini-comics. The artist for the first comic, and the artist of the middle four and the bonuses are unknown, but “Charlotte” was labelled with “Poncho”, for what it’s worth.
The Medusa comic relied on a Japanese pun; the word “ishi” can be interpreted as “stone” or “doctor”. Thanks to my wife for coming up with an equivalent joke in English. Hopefully the rest of the jokes are clear!
Great video game comic news everyone! The Metroid Database has finally finished their scanlation of the complete Samus & Joey series, which they’ve been releasing periodically for some time now. There are 4 whole volumes of completely new and original action-packed stories in the Metroid universe, with Samus and some new friends and foes (the 4th volume is called Metroid Extreme; it’s a continuation of S&J that wasn’t released in tankobon format). Check out their news post with links to the latest volume and the start. While you’re there you can even read the Metroid Prime 2 adaptation Episode of Aether in English, or any other Metroid comic going right back to Captain N. These folks are doing great work.
