The First Fire Emblem Manga Ongoing Translation Project

[Jotari]

EDIT: This was a long shot post just informing people of the existence of this manga with very faint hopes someone would offer to translate it. And, to my very great surprise, @Polinym decided to be an absolute legend and stepped forward to begin a translation project, at least for the first volume. Check it out here

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zLl2pd8HL7VQkqQV3d1sRfUud4jeNJ9b

Follow along and read the manga with us as he releases pages.

 

Below is my original post on the topic that motivated the translation effort.

I have become interested in reading the first Fire Emblem manga. It's based on the original NES game, which is important because, unlike the other Shadow Dragon manga, that means it covers they Pyrathi chapter and I am an absolute stan for Pyrathi, as I hope by now you all know. But in general I also just love Archanea and the weirdness and creativity that is 90s Fire Emblem. Anyway, this, the first Fire Emblem manga which is simply titled Fire Emblem, no subtitle (which makes it difficult to research, Serenes literally only has it's first cover and release dates and no other info) began in 1992 and was actually published concurrently with the more popular Shadow Dragon manga (which actually has been translated) between 1994 and 1997, which is a bit weird. It was done by Masaki Sano & Kyo Watanabe which are the pair that did the Gaiden one shot manga (they actually did that one shot in 1993 meaning they did it while they were making this one). It only has five volumes and, as far as I can tell, that brings it up to the conquering of Archanea (unfortunately there seems to be no complete version of this story outside of the games, unless the books cover the entirety, but Fire Emblem novels have even less attention than Fire Emblem manga). And, as to be expected for a Fire Emblem property from before even Old Mystery, there's some weirdness in designs and probably a lot of other stuff too. Here, sample green haired Anri who looks like Lewyn

Overall though, the art does seem to look pretty good.

So, I would like to read this manga. And I have a place to actually read it online. If you want to browse it yourself, have a look.

https://archive.org/details/mskwfevol1/mode/2up

Problem is, as you can see...it's in Japanese. And my Japanese reading is pretty poor (I actually speak Japanese decently well and the age we live in does actually have an option to read it aloud, but that's obviously not ideal). So...obviously this is a long shot, but I might as well try it, does anyone know if this manga has been translated in some obscure part of the internet? I've spent all morning looking but it's really hard to get solid info. Fire Emblem: Manga is obviously too general, Shadow Dragon Manga inevitably leads to the other Shadow Dragon Manga which had a translation and even searching by the artist names leads to their Gaiden Manga instead of this one. So, while I doubt it has been translated, I thought I might as well ask. No harm in that. If not, maybe I can inspire some magnanimous soul with a lot of free time and capable Japanese skills to begin a translation effort. If not, well, I guess it's back to Duo Lingo and studying Japanese for me. Even if nothing comes of this though, I thought I should at least share the link so others can browse it in Japanese and experience some of the funky old school Fire Emblem era.

 

Edited August 2 by Jotari

[King Marth 64]

That was pretty neat to see the First Fire Emblem manga looks like. I got some questions about the First Fire Emblem manga, is the Green Hair Man that was in that was holding the Falchion in Page 5 supposed to be Anri? (Also, I do wondered in Page 5 that was supposed to be young Anri at the top as well, he looked like a combination of Marth and Alm like Marth with the Green Hair and little bit more fighterish like Alm.)

Also, did they colored Caeda's hair Pink in Page 3 and are the other guys besides Ogma and Jagen supposed to be Draug, Gordin, Abel, and Cain? (Their hair colors looked very incorrect from the game's source materials since all the three guys we know have Green Hair and Cain had Red Hair.)

Edited July 31 by King Marth 64

[Polinym]

Translating a 160-something page manga is a huge undertaking... ...but I think I'll try my hand at it anyway! In the interest of keeping my sanity, I'm going to take it in small chunks if that's okay. I'm no expert though, so please feel free to correct me where I translate wrong!

I didn't bother with any pages that didn't have anything worthwhile to translate. You know, like the cover.

Turns out the files are too big to put on Serenes. I'm putting scaled-down versions of the translated pages here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zLl2pd8HL7VQkqQV3d1sRfUud4jeNJ9b?usp=sharing

[Saint Rubenio]

This is where you got Manali, right? I'd love to know more of it, it looks pretty deep, but my Japanese is nonexistent.

3 hours ago, Polinym said:

Translating a 160-something page manga is a huge undertaking... ...but I think I'll try my hand at it anyway! In the interest of keeping my sanity, I'm going to take it in small chunks if that's okay. I'm no expert though, so please feel free to correct me where I translate wrong!

I didn't bother with any pages that didn't have anything worthwhile to translate. You know, like the cover.

Turns out the files are too big to put on Serenes. I'm putting scaled-down versions of the translated pages here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zLl2pd8HL7VQkqQV3d1sRfUud4jeNJ9b?usp=sharing

Oh, awesome. Here's hoping you manage!

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Saint Rubenio said:

This is where you got Manali, right? I'd love to know more of it, it looks pretty deep, but my Japanese is nonexistent.

Oh, awesome. Here's hoping you manage!

No. Manali is on the other Shadow Dragon manga that's already been translated.

7 hours ago, Polinym said:

Translating a 160-something page manga is a huge undertaking... ...but I think I'll try my hand at it anyway! In the interest of keeping my sanity, I'm going to take it in small chunks if that's okay. I'm no expert though, so please feel free to correct me where I translate wrong!

I didn't bother with any pages that didn't have anything worthwhile to translate. You know, like the cover.

Turns out the files are too big to put on Serenes. I'm putting scaled-down versions of the translated pages here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zLl2pd8HL7VQkqQV3d1sRfUud4jeNJ9b?usp=sharing

Seriously? Wow. That was a long shot. Though before you commit anything you should know what I linked was just the first of five volumes.

[Polinym]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

No. Manali is on the other Shadow Dragon manga that's already been translated.

Seriously? Wow. That was a long shot. Though before you commit anything you should know what I linked was just the first of five volumes.

Five volumes? I most definitely won't do all 5. But, I'm still up to give this first one a shot if you're really interested in reading it. It'll probably just be something like 5-10 pages every day or so. While I have a lot of free time at the moment, I do have some other interests to pursue.

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Polinym said:

Five volumes? I most definitely won't do all 5. But, I'm still up to give this first one a shot if you're really interested in reading it. It'll probably just be something like 5-10 pages every day or so. While I have a lot of free time at the moment, I do have some other interests to pursue.

I'm desperate to get any of it that I can.

[Polinym]

Added three more pages today. Hopefully it'll go faster when we get out of backstory land. Maybe...
I also noticed that the scanned pages are in some sort of weird order I can't quite wrap my head around. So, I'm probably translating all the lines out of order. Also, bear in mind that I'm prioritizing accuracy over anything else at the moment, so making each line logical and perfectly natural sounding is not the goal. Any new pages I add can be found at the same Google Drive link I posted. I may add pages at times without posting an update here.

[Jotari]

On 8/2/2024 at 3:56 AM, Polinym said:

Added three more pages today. Hopefully it'll go faster when we get out of backstory land. Maybe...
I also noticed that the scanned pages are in some sort of weird order I can't quite wrap my head around. So, I'm probably translating all the lines out of order. Also, bear in mind that I'm prioritizing accuracy over anything else at the moment, so making each line logical and perfectly natural sounding is not the goal. Any new pages I add can be found at the same Google Drive link I posted. I may add pages at times without posting an update here.

Page 4: Our first piece of dialogue. Are you sure it says that Archanea is the western kingdom and that Dolhr is the south eastern? Because that's reversed from the maps we have in game where Archanea is to the east and Dolhr is to the south west. It is possible the author made a mistake though, as I think there's only a single rough map of Archanea from this era.

Page 8: "This has been Altea's legend for over 100 years" Still amuses me the shortness of the timeline Kaga went with compared to other fantasy stories. There are no doubt humans alive who had parents that fought with Anri during the time of the games!

And here we get the first ever design for Cornelius, I believe. He actually looks decently like the design he got in the OVA and brief glimpse in SHadow Dragon DS. At least, he has the tin mustache. He doesn't look remotely like Cornelius from the other manga though who has a big fluffy beard and looks like the recurring Thracia boss portrait. It's amazing in all of this man's various designs they never once tried to make him look remotely like Marth.

We also see Gharnef with what is clearly Imhullu, nice attention to detail considering NES sprites from a single late game chapter is the only thing the artist had to go with.

Page 9: seems to be either missing or mislabeled as the google drive jumps from 8 to 10.

Page 10: Looks like we have a design for Malledus, which is awesome. I can't even remember if Malledus appears in the other manga. He didn't have very much presence if he did. We're also getting a brief glimps of Medeus who looks a bit more human in his human design than most other renditions of him.

Page 11: The story telling is a little haphazard, I have to say. They've introduced the setting well and the overall frame of the war, but they haven't introduced any of the characters actually speaking now (which is amusingly accurate for Malledus). Like, who even is Marth? Jeigan's the only character named so far. But, I'm already well familiar with them so it doesn't bother me personally even if I can critique it. It seems they already know Gra has betrayed them and they're just assuming Cornelius has died now. The other manga has a pretty major change that doesn't technically contradict pre-Shadow Dragon canon wherein Marth is personally at the battle of Menedy River and sees Gharnef kill Cornelius first hand. That all takes up like the first volume. This one seems to be getting to the action quicker, but still not so quickly as the games themselves which just drop Marth in Talys right away.

Page 12: This is probably our most interesting change so far. "The Queen Consort will look after the Falchion". So, on one hand, yay, something for Liza to actually do! On the other hand, eh, why? She can't use it, it should stay with Marth. And if Liza is here and alive, how does both she and Elice fail to escape with Marth? I guess that's something all versions of the story seem to address, but, still, if her job is to look after Falchion you'd think her escape with Marth, together, would be paramount. More confusingly, she seems to already be dead, since we're getting a glimpse of two bodies with Marth saying "Mother, father, why?" so maybe all of these first few pages are flash backs.

Edited August 7 by Jotari

[Polinym]

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Are you sure it says that Archanea is the western kingdom and that Dolhr is the south eastern?

Just checked, and it looks like it was my goof. "western kingdom" should be "holy kingdom", and Durhua is indeed in the southwest. I added a fixed page 4.

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Page 9 seems to be either missing or mislabeled as the google drive jumps from 8 to 10.

I'm not sure how I missed page 9, so I threw it back in.

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

Looks like we have a design for Malledus, which is awesome. I can't even remember if Malledus appears in the other manga. He didn't have very much presence if he did. We're also getting a brief glimps of Medeus who looks a bit more human in his human design than most other renditions of him.

Note, Morodof's getting named here is the result of me having trouble localizing a word and needing something natural to fill its place. In the comic, the Mars-looking character addresses the Morodof-looking character as "じい", and of my dictionary search (https://jisho.org/search/じい), the only likely candidate was "court physician". This character looked like some kind of bishop or something. I didn't really have any title to replace this with, and he really looks like he should be Morodof, so I just had (what I assume is) Mars address him by his "name". I can just scrub the name off, unless someone has a better idea.

12 hours ago, Jotari said:

"The Queen Consort will look after the Falchion"

Yeah, that line didn't seem to make sense logic-wise. 王妃 is definitely consort, but my understanding of the canon was that Gharnef just killed Cornelius and stole the Falchion, and Liza's supposed to die at some point too. Unless... 預かってゆく would be mean more "The Falchion was lost with the queen consort?". Actually, that would fit Mars's surprised reaction.

Perhaps I should keep some kind of log and talk about the confusion that pops up while I'm translating as a sort of disclaimer.

Anyway, progress may be slower this weekend.

[Jotari]

On 8/3/2024 at 2:32 AM, Polinym said:

Just checked, and it looks like it was my goof. "western kingdom" should be "holy kingdom", and Durhua is indeed in the southwest. I added a fixed page 4.

I'm not sure how I missed page 9, so I threw it back in.

Note, Morodof's getting named here is the result of me having trouble localizing a word and needing something natural to fill its place. In the comic, the Mars-looking character addresses the Morodof-looking character as "じい", and of my dictionary search (https://jisho.org/search/じい), the only likely candidate was "court physician". This character looked like some kind of bishop or something. I didn't really have any title to replace this with, and he really looks like he should be Morodof, so I just had (what I assume is) Mars address him by his "name". I can just scrub the name off, unless someone has a better idea.

Yeah, that line didn't seem to make sense logic-wise. 王妃 is definitely consort, but my understanding of the canon was that Gharnef just killed Cornelius and stole the Falchion, and Liza's supposed to die at some point too. Unless... 預かってゆく would be mean more "The Falchion was lost with the queen consort?". Actually, that would fit Mars's surprised reaction.

Perhaps I should keep some kind of log and talk about the confusion that pops up while I'm translating as a sort of disclaimer.

Anyway, progress may be slower this weekend.

Page 14: Going a bit further we get some minor clarification that Liza was captured, it seems, before Altea castle itself fell. Which is still a curious detail as she's confirmed not captured but outright killed in even the NES game. Maybe they were planning to have her play a role later on, but, considering this manga ended long before they reached Altea, we might never know.

Page 15: Oh, cool, an injured Kain tells Marth about the Dolhrians approaching. This is actually a detail that eventually came to exist in Shadow Dragon DS, at least, kind of, it's him who brings word of the Battle of Menedy in that version. Jeigan plays that role in the OVA.

Page 18: "A woman's legs will only get in the way of our escape" Ah, early Fire Emblem sexism...though, honestly, probably not entirely inaccurate given biological realities of trained knights vs a courtly lady. They probably can run a lot faster. Though, gameplay does back that up with gender equal move values. Still, my favourite version of this farewell is the OVA where Elice gets to use a warp staff to whisk Marth and Jeigan out of the castle. Shame the DS version didn't utilize that idea. Also, in this version, Kain is literally bleeding out on the ground here and would probably  not have the energy to escape. Though, maybe the authors are intending to kill him, they killed one of Alm's villager friends in the Gaiden manga. And honestly, for adaptations of Fire Emblem, I whole heartedly support killing of characters that can survive in the game. Because characters in the game can also die and my just working perma death into an adaptive narrative like that you get the chance to play with the story more and increase the level of tension even for people who are familiar with the work. Fire Emblem also just has a really big cast for traditional story telling and would probably benefit being thinned slightly compared to just keeping characters around for the sake of it.

Page 22: Altea Castle is burning. Well they certainly didn't burn it in the games since we have a whole chapter in it. Maybe the bad guys rebuilt it? Again, we won't know since this version ends before the return to Altea.

Page 28: Well Kain actually is still alive, guess someone carried him, or he was just being overly dramatic about his injuries before.

 

Edited August 7 by Jotari

[Polinym]

Update: We made it to Talis!
I'm now up to page 40. Granted, pages 39 and 40 were so very extremely difficult... 😛

Also... I'm not really gonna do sound effects unless I can easily replace them. I can scrub the text in speech bubbles no problem, but there ain't no way I'm scrubbing things like this:

Which, incidentally, is どか. DOKA!

Edited August 9 by Polinym

[Jotari]

3 hours ago, Polinym said:

Update: We made it to Talis!
I'm now up to page 40. Granted, pages 39 and 40 were so very extremely difficult... 😛

Also... I'm not really gonna do sound effects unless I can easily replace them. I can scrub the text in speech bubbles no problem, but there ain't no way I'm scrubbing things like this:

Which, incidentally, is どか. DOKA!

The text scrubbing has been impeccable. Barely looks like there was a text replacement at all.

[Polinym]

Up to page 47 now. The Mars-Sheeda exchange was a bit tricky to figure out at times, but one particular spot has me stumped.
It's this bit where Sheeda is talking about her pegasus, エルカイト (localized to Elkyte). Mars has just commented that the pegasus must be getting tired.
This is the Sheeda's response in Japanese.

And here's what I could come up with.

 

In particular, それくらいぺでも　ありません！ is tripping me up. でも must be the particle, so what's ぺ (pe) in this case? Does someone know the answer...?

 

[Jotari]

8 hours ago, Polinym said:

Up to page 47 now. The Mars-Sheeda exchange was a bit tricky to figure out at times, but one particular spot has me stumped.
It's this bit where Sheeda is talking about her pegasus, エルカイト (localized to Elkyte). Mars has just commented that the pegasus must be getting tired.
This is the Sheeda's response in Japanese.

And here's what I could come up with.

 

In particular, それくらいぺでも　ありません！ is tripping me up. でも must be the particle, so what's ぺ (pe) in this case? Does someone know the answer...?

 

A response from a Japanese native on the matter 

"That’s “hedemo” not pedemo.  

“He-demo-nai” means ‘nothing’ or ‘a piece of cake.’ The dot next to “he” here is used to emphasize the word “he” (fert(面白い))."

Me: Ah. Thank you. That's confusing though, I thought it was the symbol turning "he" to "pe". 

Her: If you want to turn “he” into “pe,” you put a small circle on the upper right corner of “he” not a dot.

 

So it's not a diacritic, it's a filled dot to the side not a hollow circle above the character.

Edited August 16 by Jotari

[Polinym]

16 minutes ago, Jotari said:

A response from a Japanese native on the matter 

"That’s “hedemo” not pedemo.  

“He-demo-nai” means ‘nothing’ or ‘a piece of cake.’ The dot next to “he” here is used to emphasize the word “he” (fert(面白い))."

Me: Ah. Thank you. That's confusing though, I thought it was the symbol turning "he" to "pe". 

Her: If you want to turn “he” into “pe,” you put a small circle on the upper right corner of “he” not a dot.

 

So it's not a diacritic, it's a filled dot to the side not a hollow circle above the character.

Huh, that makes a lot of sense . I guess that little dot kinda looked like a maru, but I see it now. I'll make sure to fix that on my next pass. I thought there was some kind of joke going on in those panels I hadn't picked up on. Thanks! 🙂

[Jotari]

33 minutes ago, Polinym said:

Huh, that makes a lot of sense . I guess that little dot kinda looked like a maru, but I see it now. I'll make sure to fix that on my next pass. I thought there was some kind of joke going on in those panels I hadn't picked up on. Thanks! 🙂

Now I'm curious about Shiida's reaction in the second panel. She looks kind of shocked or embarrassed at what Marth said. Maybe she was exaggerating a bit and Marth is actually calling her out on it. Also what is going on with that background? Are they in a wallpaper store or something XD

Edited August 16 by Jotari

[Jotari]

Page 32: Ohh. That's a cool change. Ogma showing up at the fall of Altea because he was sent by king...Alex. Huh. Well that answers one of my questions that caused me to research the Archanea mangas to begin with. Despite Mostyn's name being decided before the first game was even released, it seems this author was left in the dark about that and randomly decided to name him Alex.

Page 34: We get to see Shiida's mother. There is a shot in the OVA that lingers on a portrait that might be her mother, but I think this is the only time we see actually see her in any media. I think the other manga ignores her entirely.

Page 36: Again I think you might have made an east west mistake, since the fort Marth occupies is on the east of Talys in the games.

Generally speaking the path they're taking is that Marth actively doesn't want to fight, which suits his personality. I expect Gazzak will show up soon and give him a rude awakening. Shiida has a fiesty personality not completely unlike her OVA characterization, though a tad less bratty.

[Polinym]

Just as an update, I've got to finish an EarthBound fangame that's due by August 31st, so I most likely won't post any new pages until after I've completed it.