4-Koma Gag Battle



The Golden Sun 4-Koma Gag Battle is a self-published Japanese manga (doujinshi) released on December 10, 2001 in Japan as part of the Hi no Tama Game Comic Series, published by Kobunsha. It is an unofficial work that is not formally endorsed by Camelot Software Planning but is published and sold for profit by the manga artists nonetheless; while from a Western standpoint this would be illegal, from the Japanese standpoint the doujinshi industry in general is widespread and generally accepted, and any legal action by companies whose characters and fictional properties are being used without their formal permission is uncommon. It was published four months after Golden Sun's August 1, 2001 Japanese release date. Since Golden Sun: The Lost Age was released 10 months after the first game, the 4-Koma only features characters and references from the first game, and thus Piers, Karst and Agatio are noticeably absent.

The volume is composed of four-cell strips done by various artists. 4-Koma is shorthand for Yonkoma Manga, meaning 4-cell manga. The majority of the strips involve humour, hence Gag Battle. Eighteen artists contributed to the manga. Each one of them contributed one colour page and six black-and-white pages. In total, the manga came up to 126 pages, 16 of them colored.

There have been separate translation projects underway to translate it into English for the Western Golden Sun community. One project has been ongoing at Golden Sun Realm, with the scans being withheld until it is completed. The other project is being done by a community member pen-named Sora G. Silverwind, who releases the individual scans once translated.

The following table describes each individual page/strip in detail. It is based off the English fan translations and scans provided by Silverwind, and thus is only as complete as her scanslations.

Colored strips
This first group of pages of the manga are in color, unlike the rest of the product.