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.
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.
VAMPIRE HUNTER D
16 shelves
The Vampire Hunter D Novel Gallery
The Vampire Hunter D novel cover line documented: the 1983 Sonorama Bunko originals painted by Yoshitaka Amano, the 1992 hardcover Favorite Printings, the…
The History of Vampire Hunter D
The history of Vampire Hunter D from Hideyuki Kikuchi's first novel in January 1983 through two films, a manga, a PlayStation game, and the January 2026 volume…
How many Vampire Hunter D novels are there?
How many Vampire Hunter D novels are there? The honest answer is three counts at once: 41 novels in 53 volumes by April 2023, a numbering that has since reached…
Who is D, the Vampire Hunter?
Who is D? A dhampir engineered by the Sacred Ancestor, Dracula himself, more than ten thousand years old, who hunts the vampire Nobility of the year 12,090 for…
What is the Left Hand in Vampire Hunter D?
What is the Left Hand? A sentient symbiote with a face in D's palm, a creature called a Countenanced Carbuncle, who mocks D, swallows magic, and can raise him…
What is the Frontier in Vampire Hunter D?
What is the Frontier? The lawless edge of Earth in 12,090 AD, ten thousand years after a nuclear war the vampires planned for, ruled in patches by the decaying…
What did Yoshitaka Amano do for Vampire Hunter D?
Yoshitaka Amano has painted every Vampire Hunter D cover since 1983 and drew the interior illustrations for forty-three years. His role, his D design, and the…
What are the Vampire Hunter D art books?
The Vampire Hunter D art books: Coffin (1997), the Yoshitaka Amano Art Collection (2000), the Reader's Guide (2001), Kawajiri's 647-page Bloodlust storyboard…
How was the 1985 Vampire Hunter D movie made?
The 1985 Vampire Hunter D movie: made by Ashi Productions for the new home video market, directed by Toyoo Ashida with Yoshitaka Amano designs, released 21…
How was Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust made?
How Bloodlust was made: fan demand and Kikuchi's complaints started it in 1997, Madhouse and Yoshiaki Kawajiri spent four years on it, and the English track was…
Why did Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust become a cult film?
Why Bloodlust became a Western cult object: a charting DVD in 2002, a licensing quirk that kept the Japanese track off American discs for decades, and the GKIDS…
What is the Vampire Hunter D manga?
Saiko Takaki's Vampire Hunter D manga: launched worldwide on one day in October 2007, eight volumes adapting the 1980s novels, a cancelled American finale, and…
How can you read Vampire Hunter D in English?
Reading Vampire Hunter D in English: the DH Press paperbacks from 2005 in Kevin Leahy's translation, the numbering trap, the Dark Horse Omnibus program to Book…
What Vampire Hunter D games and audio dramas are there?
The Vampire Hunter D game and audio shelf: the 1999 PlayStation survival horror from Victor Interactive, the Japanese drama CDs with Kaneto Shiozawa, and…
What else lives in the world of Vampire Hunter D?
Beyond the 44 novels: the Greylancer prequels drawn by Castlevania's Ayami Kojima, the Dhampir Hunting spinoff, and Kikuchi's short stories, some of which exist…
VINLAND SAGA
20 shelves
The Vinland Saga Manga Gallery: All 29 Japanese Covers
Every Japanese tankobon cover of Makoto Yukimura’s Vinland Saga, volumes 1 to 29, Afternoon KC, Kodansha, 2005 to 2025, each with its release date and cover subject.
The History of Vinland Saga
From the April 2005 debut in Weekly Shonen Magazine to the final chapter in July 2025: the history of Makoto Yukimura’s Vinland Saga, its move to Afternoon, its…
Why Did Vinland Saga Leave Weekly Shōnen Magazine?
Vinland Saga began in Weekly Shonen Magazine in April 2005 and moved to Monthly Afternoon that December. The documented reason: Makoto Yukimura could not keep a…
What Are the Four Arcs of Vinland Saga?
Makoto Yukimura built Vinland Saga in four arcs: War (chapters 1-54), Slave/Farmland (55-100), Eastern Expedition (101-166), and Vinland (167-220), mapped to the…
How Many Chapters Does Vinland Saga Have?
Vinland Saga has 220 numbered chapters across 29 volumes, plus bonus stories, the Dogland Saga side story, and a reprinted 2004 one-shot. The arc-by-arc counts,…
How Did Vinland Saga End?
Vinland Saga ended with chapter 220,
How Does Makoto Yukimura Draw Vinland Saga?
Yukimura’s documented method on Vinland Saga: scenes composed mentally first, three assistants, twelve-hour days, a page a day, hand inking kept even after the…
Where Did Yukimura Research Vinland Saga?
The documented research behind Vinland Saga: Scandinavia in 2003, then Denmark, Iceland, France, Britain and Canada, full-scale models, and named Mi’kmaq…
Who Was the Real Thorfinn Karlsefni?
The historical Thorfinn Karlsefni: Icelandic explorer, husband of Gudrid, father of Snorri, leader of a Vinland settlement voyage, and how much of him the manga…
What Sagas Is Vinland Saga Based On?
The Saga of the Greenlanders, the Saga of Erik the Red, and the Flateyjarbok: the medieval Icelandic texts behind Vinland Saga, and what Yukimura took from each.
Is Vinland Real?
Vinland is real: the sagas’ landfall, the Norse site at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, and tree-ring proof of Europeans in the Americas in 1021, five…
Who Is Askeladd Based On?
Askeladd’s documented roots: Olaf Tryggvason, the slave who became Norway’s king, the Welsh Artorius lineage written into his name, and the Norwegian folktale of…
How Was the Vinland Saga Anime Made?
The making of the Vinland Saga anime: Wit Studio’s 2019 season and MAPPA’s 2023 season, director Shuhei Yabuta across both, and the craft problem of animating…
Why Did the Vinland Saga Anime Change Studios?
Season two of Vinland Saga moved from Wit Studio to MAPPA, but director Shuhei Yabuta, designer Takahiko Abiru, and composer Yutaka Yamada all stayed. What the…
What Did Yukimura Write Before Vinland Saga? (Planetes)
Planetes, Makoto Yukimura’s hard-SF manga of orbital debris collectors: Weekly Morning 1999-2004, four volumes, the Sunrise anime, and two Seiun Awards. The…
