Baraduke 2 mini-comic
Here’s another scanlation for a short, obscure video game comic! This time it’s for Namco’s arcade space shooter Bakutotsu Kijuutei: Baraduke 2.
The original Baraduke was released in 1985, and its premise of a spacesuit-clad action hero who is revealed to be a woman predates Nintendo’s Metroid by a year. That hero, Kissy aka Toby Masuyo, does not appear in Baraduke 2 (although the UGSF timeline published later retcons that she did); instead the player 2 character Takky—named for designer Yukio Takahashi—graduates to player 1 status in the sequel, and she is accompanied by new character Hommy. This isn’t super relevant to this manga, but I thought I’d give you the background because the identity of the main character is left ambiguous in the text.
Anyway, this manga was published in Namco’s official PR magazine NG: Namco Community Magazine, in the September 1988 issue, to promote the release of the game. The credits for that issue list Jun’ichi Ishikura as illustrator, which I think means he drew the comic, and I have assumed that he also wrote it. His other works include a Bomberman gamebook and a series of instructional manga.
The manga is brief at 4 pages, acting as a prologue and setting up the context for the game’s events. Dialogue is sparse, leaving space for some cool, dramatic action panels. It’s intended to be read in standard Japanese right-to-left format. I’ve left sound effects intact in the art, with captions for approximate equivalents.
The marvellous Kate Willaert later did her own scanlation of this comic, which you can find here.