Umihara Kawase Gaiden
Here’s a short, rare comic based on the cult classic Super Famicom game Umihara Kawase, now in English for the first time!
In 1995, along with the release of the original Umihara Kawase game, Shouma Yamabuki wrote and illustrated an 8-part manga series which was published in Comic Burger magazine (this is not that). They also created a 40-page comic story that was published in the Scola/Scholar Hyper Technique guide for the game (this is that).
This “gaiden”—or sidestory—chapter uses the setting of his manga series, which is pretty distinct from the admittedly story-light game. In this setting, the heroine Umihara Kawase (whose name is spelled differently from the game version, to denote this is an alternate take on the character) has the mysterious power to breathe underwater and uses an electrified lure as a weapon, and must confront the legacy of her oceanographer father along with her friend Kouichi Shioji, who appears in this chapter. Now I haven’t seen the end of the series yet but this chapter probably takes place after it, or at least in some self-contained narrative place disconnected from the main story.
I scanned this from the guide myself (something I’m not too experienced at, so please excuse any poor image quality). My faithful collaborator Horseypope translated the Japanese text, and I did the rest. Special thanks to SirCathyWise and my friend Gibbon.
This is a fun short story, a story of excitement, mystery, and sea monsters. I hope you get a kick out of this obscure piece from a lovely little series. Also, please enjoy the extra illustrations gathered from the guide, including some by character designer Toshinobu Kondou (I didn’t include the art showing off game techniques, because it’s all visible in the game’s manual already).