currently in my summer bookselling era at the store where i bought the four swords manga in 2022 (!!!) and paying it forward with a shelf recommendation
Two years after its initial posting, I finally got around to an editing overhaul of my TOTK fic Mask Off! It's just under 50k words and tells a canon-adjacent story about the Lucky Clover Gazette, the Yiga Clan, and Link's emotional turmoil after discovering Zelda's fate. TOTK side characters Traysi and Mimos feature heavily, alongside two Yiga OCs. There's a healthy balance of comedy, emotions, and lesbian tension between Traysi and an aforementioned Yiga OC. I also wrote a prequel featuring these characters detailing the original Thunder Helm heist in Gerudo Town.
If you wished for more story depth in TOTK, this fic might be for you. It was written with a deep love and appreciation for the Wilds-era games and their worldbuilding, characters, and thematic subtext. Also with a deep love and appreciation for evil workplaces, journalistic integrity, and banana bread. And Mimos.
(Art above is by @solarwreathe, friend of the story and author of her own incredible Yiga OC fic, Desert Bandits. Art below is mine.)
hi so i’ve been in a master’s program to teach high school english this past year and i’m designing a unit about graphic literature. i am going to give students the option to read a passage from himekawa’s twilight princess manga :)
still can’t get over how perfect this entire scene, and specifically these panels, manage to be. akira himekawa are so good at conveying emotion in their art, even when they’re doing chibi-esque versions of the same character. and the juxtaposition of vio and shadow on both sides, the good and the bad, staring at each other across the center panel? also obsessed with the way their expressions/appearances are like visually dichotomous (shadow’s hair goes down, vio’s goes up; shadow’s eye is lidded, vio’s is wide; shadow is smirking, vio is frowning). and perhaps most importantly, we cannot ignore that vio is blushing. for some reason. okay
soooo here's the thing. i was looking at akira himekawa's website on a whim and found a public blog, with posts that go all the way back to 2009. many hours of google translating later, and i've developed an even stronger admiration of these two women and their exceptional career as manga artists. they share so much in these posts about the creative process, their thoughts on social justice, their connections with nature, and their most major original story, gliding reki, which seems to have always been a passion project in the midst of commercial work.
from what i could gather, reki is unique in that they were determined to do it in full color. and they did it, because after reading about their career, it's clear to me that when these women set their mind to an idea, they make it happen. see also: they just recently produced and distributed their own art book, because no publishers were offering to do it in a way that pleased them.
their stated goals for reki were to make something more adult than their previous children's manga, taking place in a city, involving a lot of mechanical art, and featuring stronger romantic and self-described erotic subtext. good for them. before i get into the four swords-related stuff, i'm sharing what i could find on the internet about reki.
more under the cut, because there's quite a bit to discuss :)
not much that i could find on the blog specifically references four swords, but they have many fascinating insights about nintendo, the zelda fandom, and the franchise as a whole. i can't know for certain because this information was surmised from translated text, but it seems as if their manga with chibi link made them feel a little stifled, which is why they took a long break before returning to do twilight princess. it's not lost on me that even a work like four swords, which they may regard as not their favorite or best, still has inspired and brought together so many passionate, creative, and diverse people. this is especially sweet because it seems as if they met each other, and formed their creative partnership, because of a shared fandom interest of their own.
honda and nagano have shared their thoughts and feelings on this blog for more than a decade, and they have a lot of thoughts and feelings. throughout their entire career they've made commentary on work-life balance, their experiences as women in a male-dominated field, and their desire to create original art while simultaneously enjoying some commercial work as well. they are passionate about social justice, particularly re: women and indigenous people, and offer insights on aspects of culture and history and the state of the world that really could resonate with anyone. and they really seem to appreciate fans of their work, and emphasize repeatedly the care and thought they put into their manga in the hopes it will inspire and bring catharsis to readers. they love animals (especially wolves), being outside in nature, being nerds about art they enjoy, a certain subgenre of romantic manga that appealed to and empowered female readers in the 90's and 2000's, and traveling around the world to partake in activities like horse riding and falconry.
the coolest part is, they're still updating the blog to this day :) in fact they seem to have recently returned to it, reflecting that twitter is not their preferred manner of sharing things online. they seem very familiar with and fond of older-school blogging culture.
there's a lot more i could say here about my findings, some of which do pertain to... certain ships 💜🖤 . but i don't want my genuine appreciation for these authors to be overshadowed by that kind of conversation. in addition to a link to the blog itself, i'm including a few translated posts of interests, which you can interpret and incorporate into your perception of the media however you please. at the end of the day, it's a really cool gift that these artists have chosen to share so much over such a long period of time. by making their personalities, beliefs, and insights more visible to fans of their work, i hope it brings new context to the stories we already love.
a modern-day insight:
re: the zelda mangas. these are from several points throughout their career. please note that they have so many fond things to say about zelda as a franchise and their work on the mangas, especially regarding the way they've affected fans. i encourage you to look for yourself, on their blog and their other socials!
re: gliding reki
re: the creative process (and in the latter two, the fandom that seems to have inspired them!)
re: their two goofyass adorable tiny dogs that they dress up in outfits while also loving wolves like a lot, they love wolves (both domesticated and wild), they really love wolves
re: wolf day (every day is wolf day,)
re: indigenous rights
re: painting serious works on commission vs their manga. i can't know for sure exactly what it means, but it really does kinda hit
re: a fan and manga artist in training bringing them art and a note
and a moment from a twilight princess manga interview i found very sweet :)
okay. you've made it to the end. i know you're wondering. here you go. please remember that this is and always has been a public blog, and these posts are actually from 2009 and 2010. also please remember that the point of this post is not to cause or fuel fandom discourse, but to appreciate these authors and the things that they choose to express.
(also, this is the column they were referring to in image 1. it's FASCINATING. give it a read if you'd like!)
the dots are there. you're welcome to connect them.
thank you for your beautiful work and insights, honda and nagano. please never change.
our beloved akiras himekawa have started releasing an original fantasy manga with viz media, called kamudo! love seeing hints of their style, humor, and heart from four swords. check it out <3
From romance to horror, there's something for every fan | Kamudo - From the artists behind The Legend of Zelda manga comes a brand new fanta
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