[Comic] Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 2
Rounding out my translations of the 4koma posted on Dawn of Sorrow’s Japanese website, here’s Shizumon’s comics. Don’t miss Part 1. Again, knowledge of the game is required for some but sometimes it’s that Julius is just weird, or kind of a perv. (EDIT: As Greenhat97 points out in their tags, he’s not a perv, he just enjoyed having his back stomped, as established in “Julius Mode 2”. My bad.) Once again thanks to Castlevania Realm for archiving the raw comics.
[Comic] Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow official 4koma, unofficial scanlation, Part 1
Here we have the non-Shizumon 4koma that were released on the official Japanese site for Dawn of Sorrow. I’ve translated the four (plus two bonus single panels) that were not done by the regular artist; unfortunately the artist of these is unknown. Some of these were tricky to puzzle out but in the end turned into some good gags! Although knowledge of the game is definitely required.
[Comic] Castlevania: Lament of Innocence official 4koma, unofficial scanlation
Once again we have some quick gag comics from the Japanese official game website, that I’ve translated into English. This time in addition to Shizumon, there’s some comics from another artist (that I don’t think are quite as funny). And again Castlevania Realm made it easier for me by collecting these and other comics.
[Comic] Castlevania Judgment official 4koma, unofficial scanlation
This set of comics was trickier than most to get raws for; the official website is entirely in Flash and the images can’t just be saved. So I got screenshots (which turned out a little better than the screenshots saved here, my usual source). Regardless, they’re still the familiar Shizumon 4koma, and they’ve so far only been available in Japanese. Until now! I’ve translated the text and sound effects to make them accessible to English speakers. Lots of fun gags in these ones!
[Comic] Castlevania: Lords of Shadow: Mirror of Fate official 4koma, unofficial scanlation
Like many of the Castlevania games before it, Mirror of Fate had some 4koma by Shizumon on its official website. This time there are only two, and neither has previously been translated to English. So I did it!
The strips have been archived here, along with some standalone Shizumon artwork of the characters, as well as other comics for many other Castlevania games.
[Comic] Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia official 4koma, unofficial scanlation
The Order of Ecclesia official site in Japan had 19 4koma at a low resolution. The US site had 12 of them translated to English, in much higher quality. I’ve now translated the remaining 7 that were not officially localised. Unfortunately, the source was quite low-res but they’re simple enough that they’re still fine.
I’m quite proud of them, especially all the sound effects that I translated. Thanks to the artist, Shizumon, for doing such simple backgrounds and layouts that were easy to work with! The originals (including the official English ones), along with many others, are archived on this page (I checked, they are stored here in the native form they had on release at the official websites).
Video game comic news! Tanjou Scanlations, translators of many interesting Megaman comics, have just finished their last release (they’ve run out of translations and translators). They’ve had a good run, so check out their past releases linked on their blog. The final one is one I’ve been anticipating: Volume 3 of the Rockman Zero manga. It’s much more silly and dumb than the games, but it’s still great to see it in English. Check out Tanjou here.
In 1991, Nintendo Power ran a Battletoads comic in 2 issues. In 1992, there was a pilot for an animated series that recast the Toads’ human forms as teenagers. In 1993, GamePro magazine printed another comic in 2 issues that was a direct adaptation of the animated pilot. I haven’t seen the latter mentioned much before, so here it is, thanks to scans from Retromags and Aka Games.
Note that the story (carried over from the pilot) is credited to David Wise. This is an entirely different David Wise to the legendary Rareware composer who did the music for all the games. Same name, strange connection.
My recent playthrough of Lufia DS inspired me to tackle this big project: I scanlated into English a 32-page comic special from 1996, given away (presumably to subscribers) courtesy of Nintendo of Germany’s official magazine, Club Nintendo. (Since NOE’s headquarters is in Germany, they get all the best stuff.)
Since Europe was pretty starved of JRPGs, when one came out I guess they wanted to market it. Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals was released in Europe as simply Lufia, since PAL never got the first game. This comic is mainly serious/action with a few amusing moments, retelling the plot of the game up to the first encounter with Gades in West Gordovan Tower (although some bits are skipped and Guy gets a Dekar scene transferred to him). Tia is great when they let her have some lines, and Foomy gets a whole page to himself.
I like the look of the characters although the faces can look wonky at times. It’s interesting that Guy, whose look has been changed compared to his official artwork, actually looks a lot like his appearance in the reboot, Curse of the Sinistrals. Maxim is blond; go figure. Idura was also combined with Camu in terms of their plots and appearance, to speed up the plot I guess.
While translating this I discovered that the German script has unique names for many of the towns and a few other things. More details are on the credits page, but I changed them to the established English names. Of particular note though are the Sinistrals, who in German are called Höllenfürsten, meaning Princes of Darkness or Lords of Hell. There’s a few Hell references, although the theology is a bit confused with characters exclaiming “My God” but a villager referring to “the gods”. Also on localisation issues, because the art for these comics was done in Japan and sent back to Germany, some signs are labelled in Japanese and were left that way in the original comic.
Anyway overall the comic is very faithful to the game, and a treat for Lufia fans. The dialogue and character interactions are a highlight of the game and hopefully I’ve done that justice. The art is also quite unique. I’d love for some creaky old Lufia fansites to cough out a rare update just for me and my project, hehe! Enjoy! (And check out the comic tag on this blog for more scanlations and video game comics, or the Club Nintendo comics tracking spreadsheet I made!)
I’m always on the hunt for rare video game comics. When #20 of the Reploid Research Lavatory asked for help with distributing a manhua (Chinese manga) based on Rockman DASH aka Megaman Legends, I had to volunteer. #20 has highlighted some memorable scenes in their post, but wanted to make the full thing available. I’ve therefore uploaded it to Mediafire so all can see it and perhaps even read it, if you understand Chinese.
I won’t be translating this myself, but I would love for anyone willing to step up and take it on. There is some editing required (unless #20′s other volunteer has done so), as the scans are raw and uncropped. I have run them through imageOptim though, a lossless process to reduce the size by eliminating unnecessary image data.
EDIT: This is now being translated by BluesDriveBuster. Find the ongoing project here.
Here’s the only official Rayman comic (as far as I know). It was done for a special issue of the Disney Adventures magazine in “Winter 2000”, although it was also printed in the UK’s equivalent Disney’s Big Time in 2001 (the print presented here is the UK one, which has a blue background as opposed to white). It was a gaming-themed issue and also included comics for Donkey Kong 64, Ape Escape, and Crash Team Racing.
The comic itself is obviously based on Rayman 2, with Ray going against Razorbeard and his Robo-Pirates with the help of Globox and Ly. The art is fun if a little wonky here and there, but the script is pretty uninspired, simplistic and exclusively reliant on puns for humour. It doesn’t really add anything to the universe either, but at least Globox doesn’t talk like a big dumb-dumb.
After the Rayman series was undermined by Rabbids, there were a number of Rabbids comics, but by that point they’d mostly divorced themselves from their Rayman origins (so to speak). The only other adaptation for Rayman was the animated series, which is pretty much an alternate continuity for the second game, it seems. More on that later.
Ooh, golly. For a nice Christmas treat, our good friends over at Opentrain have released their fourth translation of German Club Nintendo comics. Now if you’ve been keeping up with my blog and checking my spreadsheet, you’ll know that 1995’s three comics had previously been translated. Twilight Vestige’s DKC and Legato’s Wario Christmas are efforts not to be disparaged, but Cryomancer’s done a really good job on these old classics. A pity I did Picross myself so recently… Anyway, check them out here.
Inspired by the recent release of Picross e5 to the 3DS eShop, I wanted to translate this Mario’s Picross-themed comic from the official German Nintendo Magazine, Club Nintendo. I say Picross-themed, but it just borrows the vague setting of the game without any reference to picrossing.
So Mario’s taking a turn as a pop archeologist: robbing tombs, desecrating important cultural sites, offending the locals. As someone in the comic points out, he fancies himself the Indiana Jones type but he’s really just in it for personal gain. It’s kinda reprehensible but I’m pleased to once again see Mario not as the good guy.
Anyway this comic happens to be the next on Opentrain’s speculative list, if their past releases are any indication. But they’re doing Spanish and French comics now so I felt able to take this. Besides, it’s actually the last regular non-reprint non-special non-N-gang Club Nintendo comic to come to the English language. Woohoo! That actually is quite a milestone, despite my qualifications. For more information, please see my helpful resource, the Club Nintendo comics database.
Of course, there’s still more to be done. A scant few special editions, a few comics to redo with better cleaning and translation, and N-gang if I ever get around to it, but having most of the run available for English readers is something to celebrate.
Oh and by the way, I realised my Dropbox links may not have been working in the past. This one’s actually in my public folder so should be downloadable, and I’ll update any older links for other comics. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you soon with more comics!
After a bit of an absence from comics, I’ve translated this one because it’s nearly Halloween and it was the magazine’s Halloween special. It ran in two parts, in the nominal Halloween issue (September/October) in 1996 and 1997. Both parts are here for your convenience.
This comic seems like the turning point for the magazine, where things start getting really crazy. It introduces a few running jokes that are used in subsequent comics, including the made-up greeting “Holerö” which gained enough prominence to be a central plot point in a later issue. Now I post these out of order so it may not be obvious, but I invite you to check out my handy spreadsheet to see where each comic fits in.
The idea of this comic is that a bunch of Nintendo characters live together in a Brooklyn apartment building (although we only see 7 of them in the comic). Their night is ruined when Wario conspires with a demon to infest the place with monsters straight out of horror movies (see if you can spot all the references). Mario, Link, and Kirby team up with the aid of Van Helsing’s vampire hunting gear, and later the Necronomicon itself to fight them off. It’s spoooooky! Well, it’s whacky and weird, which is exactly what we love about Club Nintendo’s comics.
I hope it gets you in the mood for Halloween or whatever, and please spread it around. Like a vampire!
Another Mario-centric comic from the good people at Club Nintendo Germany. I don’t think this is quite as good as some others we’ve seen but it’s straightforward and amusing enough. I mean, Mario gets pooed on by a bird and Luigi gets peed on by a pack of dogs. Juvenile but there you go.
Same process as last time so nothing new to report. I’m just ticking them off the list. Actually there’s only a few left to go! Of the non-N-gang CN regular comics, the ones that haven’t been translated to English are the Halloween special, Wave Race, some reprints, Mario’s Picross, and Terranigma (which is a sample of the Special Edition comic). Some others were done kinda amateurishly and deserve redoing, frankly. As a reminder, you can see a list of said comics and details at this handy Google Docs spreadsheet I compiled (hopefully that link works).
So here’s a little comic about Mario going to a fair and being sold a demonic Game Boy Camera. How they thought this would sell them I don’t know… This is actually a good one for Mario haters, as he gets punished something severe in this comic.
