THE LIBRARY
Collector guides, cover censuses, and edition answers, documented issue by issue. Every page answers one specific question, completely.
VAGABOND
30 shelves
The Vagabond Manga Gallery
Every Japanese tankobon cover of Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond, volumes 1 to 37, Morning KC, Kodansha, 1999 to 2014, each with its release date, ISBN, and story arc.
What Weekly Morning issues have Vagabond on the cover?
Sixteen documented Weekly Morning covers led by Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond paintings, 2008 to 2014, from the LAST exhibition issue to the 2012 comeback cover,…
Vagabond's art books: Sumi, Water, and the INOUENO catalogues
Takehiko Inoue's two Vagabond art books, Water (color) and Sumi (ink), both released October 23, 2006, their 2008 Viz editions, and the two INOUENO catalogues of…
Are the Vagabond covers the same in Japanese and English?
Yes for the paintings, no for the books: Viz's single volumes keep all of Inoue's cover art and re-letter it, while the VIZBIG omnibuses and the 2025 Definitive…
What is the Vagabond VIZBIG edition?
Viz's 3-in-1 omnibuses of Vagabond: twelve paperback volumes, 2008 to 2015, collecting tankobon 1 to 36 at 5.75 by 8.63 inches with bonus color and redesigned…
What is the Vagabond Definitive Edition?
Viz Media's 2025 hardcover line for Vagabond: large-trim 7.5 by 10 inch volumes collecting three tankobon each, textured covers with gold calligraphy, launched…
Which Vagabond edition should a collector buy?
The four ways to own Vagabond, Japanese singles, English singles, VIZBIG omnibuses, and Definitive hardcovers, weighed for reading, shelving, and collecting,…
How do you identify a first printing of Japanese Vagabond?
Read the colophon: Japanese first printings of Vagabond's Morning KC volumes carry the first-printing line and the release date together. The five checks, the…
The History of Vagabond
From the September 3, 1998 debut in Weekly Morning to the 2025 Definitive hardcovers: the history of Takehiko Inoue's Vagabond, its prizes, its art books, its…
What is Vagabond based on?
Eiji Yoshikawa's 1935 novel Musashi, the Asahi Shimbun serial that made Miyamoto Musashi a national hero, and how Takehiko Inoue's manga inherits its skeleton…
How does Vagabond differ from Yoshikawa's Musashi novel?
The seventy-Yoshioka battle is Inoue's invention, his Kojiro is deaf, and his Musashi follows no bushido: the documented differences between Takehiko Inoue's…
Who was the real Miyamoto Musashi?
The historical swordsman behind Vagabond: c. 1584 to 1645, undefeated across some sixty duels, founder of the two-sword school, and the author of The Book of…
Did Musashi and Kojiro really duel on Ganryu Island?
Yes: April 13, 1612, arranged by Hosokawa Tadaoki, Musashi late by boat with a sword carved from an oar, Kojiro with his long nodachi. The recorded facts of the…
Why is Vagabond on hiatus?
Health, a lost enthusiasm Inoue named himself, a punishing brush method, and a story its author keeps refusing to rush: the documented timeline of Vagabond's…
How many chapters does Vagabond have?
327 chapters: 322 collected in 37 volumes, and a final five, chapters 323 to 327 from 2015, that exist only in Weekly Morning. The full arc-by-arc count.
When did Vagabond start in Morning magazine?
September 3, 1998, in Weekly Morning No.40: chapter 1,
What was Takehiko Inoue's The LAST Manga Exhibition?
The 2008 Ueno Royal Museum exhibition where Inoue painted an original final chapter of Vagabond across museum walls: 100-plus works, daily sellouts, and the two…
How does Takehiko Inoue draw Vagabond?
Brush and ink, no speed lines, bodies drawn from anatomy, five assistants on backgrounds, watercolor for color: Inoue's documented method for Vagabond, in his…
Why are Vagabond's covers painted in watercolor?
Because the manga is a portrait of a life: Inoue's watercolor covers age Musashi's face across 37 volumes, feed the Water art book, and scale up into the Ueno…
How did Vagabond change Takehiko Inoue after Slam Dunk?
From shonen to seinen, pen to brush, victories to costs: how Vagabond reinvented the author of Slam Dunk, in his own stated aims and the documented results.
What has Takehiko Inoue done while Vagabond is on hiatus?
Real kept running, and then came a film: Inoue's work during Vagabond's long pause, from the continuing wheelchair basketball manga to writing and directing The…
Is Vagabond finished?
No: 327 chapters, an uncollected final five, an ending painted for a museum in 2008, and no word of cancellation from Inoue or Kodansha. The precise state of…
How many copies has Vagabond sold?
Over 82 million copies in circulation worldwide, reached without any anime adaptation: what the figure counts and why it is extraordinary for an unfinished adult…
What awards has Vagabond won?
The Japan Media Arts Festival Grand Prize and the Kodansha Manga Award in 2000, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Grand Prize in 2002, and an Eisner nomination in…
Who is Sasaki Kojiro in Vagabond?
Inoue's reinvention of the legend: a deaf swordsman raised by Kanemaki Jisai, given six volumes of his own, and built into Vagabond's second protagonist on the…
What is The Book of Five Rings, and where is it in Vagabond?
Musashi's 1645 strategy treatise, written in Reigando cave in the last months of his life, and its place in Vagabond: the destination document the whole manga is…
Why is there no Vagabond anime?
No anime adaptation of Vagabond has ever been produced or announced, despite 82 million copies sold. The documented reasons: an unreproducible art method, an…
What other manga has Takehiko Inoue made?
Chameleon Jail, Slam Dunk, Buzzer Beater, and Real: the complete serial shelf of Takehiko Inoue besides Vagabond, and the 2022 film that capped the set.
How accurate is Vagabond as history?
The Yoshioka duels are real, the seventy-man stand is invented, Kojiro's deafness is Inoue's creation, and even Sekigahara has been re-argued by historians:…
What should you read after Vagabond?
Yoshikawa's novel in the Terry translation, The Book of Five Rings itself, William Scott Wilson's biography of Musashi, and Inoue's own Real: the four doors out…
VAGRANT STORY
14 shelves
The Vagrant Story Gallery
The two 2000 boxes of Vagrant Story side by side, Japan and North America, one painting printed two ways, plus the discs and editions a collector actually handles.
What is Vagrant Story?
Vagrant Story in one page: Square’s 2000 solo dungeon crawler, Yasumi Matsuno’s accused agent Ashley Riot, the dead city of Leá Monde, and a murder the player…
How was Vagrant Story made?
The making of Vagrant Story: development from January 1998, a research trip to Saint-Émilion, characters built from 320 polygons, faces 32 pixels wide, and…
Why did Famitsu give Vagrant Story a perfect score?
Vagrant Story’s Famitsu 40 out of 40, corrected and documented: it was the third perfect score in the magazine’s history, after Ocarina of Time and Soulcalibur,…
How does the Vagrant Story battle system work?
Vagrant Story’s battle system explained: the wireframe sphere and limb targeting, Chain and Defense Abilities, Break Arts, the Risk wager, and a crafting system…
What does the Vagrant Story ending mean?
The Vagrant Story ending, documented with its spoilers signposted: the city is the Gran Grimoire, the key is the Blood-Sin tattoo, Sydney is the duke’s son, and…
Who is Ashley Riot?
Ashley Riot, documented: the VKP’s elite Riskbreaker, the two contradictory pasts the game gives him, the Ultimania’s portrait of the perfect agent, and why even…
Why is there no Vagrant Story sequel?
Why Vagrant Story never got a sequel, from the record: modest sales beside its stablemates, Kawazu calling it the natural next remake candidate in 2007,…
How is Vagrant Story connected to Final Fantasy?
The Vagrant Story and Final Fantasy connection, documented: shared Ivalice vocabulary with Final Fantasy XII, the Gran Grimoire of Tactics Advance, and Matsuno’s…
What was cut from Vagrant Story?
What was cut from Vagrant Story, from Matsuno’s own E3 2000 interview: over half the scenario, the AI partners who would have fought beside Ashley, and the map…
Who translated Vagrant Story into English?
Alexander O. Smith and the English Vagrant Story: a Harvard classicist on Richard Honeywood’s young Square localization team, direct access to Matsuno, and the…
What strategy guides does Vagrant Story have?
The Vagrant Story guides shelf: Dan Birlew’s BradyGames book with its poster and its website exiled tables, and Japan’s three books, the beginner’s guide,…
Collecting Vagrant Story
Collecting Vagrant Story: the full edition census, Japan’s two budget reissues with their prices, North America’s two-disc package and Greatest Hits pressing,…
Who did the art for Vagrant Story?
The art of Vagrant Story, credited correctly: Akihito Yoshida’s characters and Hiroshi Minagawa’s direction, the Amano assumption audited, faces painted at 32 by…
VALKYRIE PROFILE
12 shelves
The Valkyrie Profile Gallery
Five games, one valkyrie: the 1999 original, Silmeria, Covenant of the Plume, Valkyrie Elysium, and the Lenneth port, with the Japanese and Western covers standing side by side wherever they differ. Here, they always differ.
The History of Valkyrie Profile
The deadline RPG of 1999: eight chapters, a Sacred Phase grade, 709,000 copies, and a Famitsu readers poll that ranked it the 27th best game ever made.
What Inspired Valkyrie Profile?
The creators on the record in 1999: the system came first, and Norse mythology was chosen because there, how you die is what matters.
The History of Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
The best reviewed game in the series (84 on Metacritic), a Japanese chart topper, and IGN's Best Game No One Played.
How Does the Time System in Valkyrie Profile Work?
Periods, Sacred Phases, Hero Value, and the Evaluation that can end the game early.
What Are Valkyrie Profile's Three Endings?
C, B, and the hidden A ending that its director designed as an act of defiance, with the walkthrough derived Seal Rating steps labeled as such.
How Is the American Valkyrie Profile Different from the Japanese One?
Added cinematics, party wide armor, one cut cigarette, and a PSP port that reverted to the Japanese build.
What Are Sealstones in Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria?
Dais, shell, and spring, per the game's own manual.
The History of Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume
The series from the ground: Wylfred's revenge, born from a commercial for the first game.
The History of Valkyrie Elysium
The 2022 action revival, and the Japanese box art the West asked for by name.
The History of Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth
The port that kept the English cinematics, lost the English improvements, and replaced every anime scene with film.
What is the Valkyrie Profile Voice Mix album?
Sakuraba wove the game's own dialogue into arranged music. He called the search through a thousand lines of dark script a defining, sleepless job.