Fire Emblem (partially lost early 4-koma manga anthologies based on tactical role-playing game franchise; 1994-2002)

This article has been tagged as NSFW due to its mild sexual subject matter.

Cover of the first volume of Fire Emblem 4-koma Manga Theatre, released in 1994.

Status: Partially Lost

Since its inception, the Fire Emblem franchise has received a number of manga adaptations, most of which have been 4-komas. The first series of 4-komas, Fire Emblem 4-koma Manga Theatre, was released between 1994 and 1997, with it's first four volumes covering the Archanea Saga, and the last two covering the fourth game, Genealogy of the Holy War. The franchise would continue to receive manga adaptations, until 2005, when Fire Emblem: Champion's Sword ended it's run. However, it started receiving manga adaptations again in 2012, with the release of a short manga adaptation of the then-newly released Fire Emblem Awakening. Meanwhile, after the release of The Binding Blade 4-komas in 2002, production of the 4-koma manga came into an abrupt halt for 13 years, until 2015, when Fire Emblem Awakening 4koma KINGS was released, though five years prior, there were also an additional two 4-komas made for the Memorial Book Archanea Chronicle.^[1]

The majority of the 4-koma anthologies are known to have a sillier and light-hearted tone than the usual dark tone seen throughout most of the Fire Emblem games, though some of the ones are known to have mildly sexual material included, mostly seen in 4-koma Manga Theatre, such as Lena attempting to undress herself in one of them, and Caeda stunning enemy soldiers by exposing her underwear in another. Games released after Binding Blade and before New Mystery of the Emblem, as well as Three Houses, never got any official 4-koma adaptations whatsoever.

Availability

Though 4-koma adaptations of games released during the 2010's are well accounted for, and A Day in the Life is currently ongoing as of 2017,^[2] the early ones based on the Archanea and Judgral Sagas, as well as The Binding Blade have been long out of print, with a vast majority having yet to be uploaded on the internet in their entirety; the main reason being that all of the 4-Koma adaptations released at the time were doujins made by fans of the series. Due to their obscurity, not much information is currently known for either of them. However, used copies of the early 4-koma mangas are still being sold online via various Japanese sites. There is currently no estimate as to how many 4-komas have been made between 1994 and 2002.

So far, three of the known Thracia 776 4-koma manga were scanned in their entirety by FlareHabanero, and were later uploaded to the Internet Archive by various users between March 4th and September 24th, 2019, whereas the fourth one, which is a sequel to the first Thracia 776 4-koma Manga Theater, has not been uploaded online as of yet. A Twitter user, @BindingManga, also scanned, translated, and uploaded several 4-komas from Binding Blade Gag Battle,^[3] with the most recent being uploaded on June 1st, 2020.^[4]

Also, a little-known Twitter bot, @ninten4koma,^[5] has continuously been posting scans of several early Fire Emblem 4-komas in rotation, but all it posts are the same several 4-komas, as the bot itself hasn't been updated for a very long time. Acenoctali, a possibly inactive Genealogy of the Holy War fansite, also hosts translations of several 4-komas, albeit mostly in French, consisting of those from one of the Genealogy of the Holy War Gag Battle volumes and Genealogy of the Holy War Gag Paradise, though the actual page amount for both of them are unknown.^[6] The rest are scattered across the internet, most notably on Twitter. A huge chunk of the available 4-komas are currently preserved in a MEGA folder, sorted in different folders.

One 4-koma manga, Yaruze! Fire Emblem^[7], which is centered around Genealogy of the Holy War 4-komas, was most likely not been scanned and uploaded online at all, and surviving copies are extremely hard to come by. A My Figure Collection user fcrtune is known to have one copy of the manga in his possession. However, he was last active on that site around June 2021, and his Carrd website link is defunct.^[8]

Raw copy uploads

On December 15th, 2021, LMW user Technocolor/Nick announced that they have bought one copy each of all six volumes of Fire Emblem 4-Koma Manga Theatre, Thracia 776 4-koma Manga Theater 2, Binding Blade 4-koma Gag Battle, and Yaruze! Fire Emblem, and will be scanning and uploading them in their entirety. Once the aforementioned manga have been uploaded online, this leaves the Genealogy of the Holy War 4-koma Gag Battle series, Genealogy of the Holy War Gag Paradise, and The Binding Blade 4-koma Manga Kingdom the only ones to not be uploaded in full.

Yaruze! Fire Emblem was eventually uploaded in its entirety for the first time by Technocolor on January 10th, 2022.

Known 4-koma Manga Anthologies

Fire Emblem 4-koma Manga Theatre
Volume #	Year	Status
Volume 1	1994	Partially Found
Volume 2	1994	Partially Found
Volume 3	1995	Partially Found
Volume 4	1995	Lost
Volume 5	1996	Partially Found
Volume 6	1997	Partially Found

Gag Battle Series
Title	Year	Status
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War 4-koma Gag Battle	1996-1998	Partially Found
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 Gag Battle 1	1999	Found
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 Gag Battle 2	2000	Found
Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade 4-koma Gag Battle	2002	Partially Lost

Other
Title	Year	Status
Yaruze! Fire Emblem	1997	Found
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War Gag Paradise	1997	Partially Found
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 4koma Manga Theater 1	2000	Found
Fire Emblem: Thracia 776 4koma Manga Theater 2	2000	Lost
Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade 4-koma Manga Kingdom	2002	Partially Found

Gallery

Front cover of all six volumes of Fire Emblem 4-koma Manga Theatre.
Back cover of all six volumes of Fire Emblem 4-koma Manga Theatre.
Side view of all six volumes of the Fire Emblem 4-koma Manga Theatre.
Front covers of the Genealogy of the Holy War Gag Battle manga volumes.
Front cover of Yaruze! Fire Emblem.
Front cover of Genealogy of the Holy War Gag Paradise.
Front cover of Thracia 776 Gag Battle 1
Front cover of Thracia 776 Gag Battle 2
Front Cover of Thracia 776 4koma Manga Theater 1.
Front Cover of Thracia 776 4koma Manga Theater 2.
Front covers of Binding Blade 4-Koma Gag Battle (Left) and Binding Blade 4-Koma Manga Kingdom (Right).