Ultima Manga

These Mangas are truely a strange thing. Around 1988, when Origin and FCI began to roll out Japanese versions of the Ultima games, the Japanese publisher JICC created Japanese manga adaptations of the games. Since these are obviously based on the japanese NES ports, a non-canon status is to be expected.

Actually, the non-canon status is a must, because what was done to the canon material is partially really strange to absurd, or outright hilarious (depends on the point of view). It creates the question how japanese manga authors can have such totally bizarre ideas.

Three mangas were published:

Exodus

 * Publisher: JICC.
 * Author: Seiji Tanaka
 * Published: 1988.
 * Length: 100 pages
 * Original List Price: 880¥ (about US$7)

This one contains two stories: "The Terror of Exodus" and "The Book of Mystic Wisdom". The manga interprets the events of Ultima III VERY freely. Otherwise it is inexplainable how a missile-shooting robot ends up in the party and star ships play a role in the story.

Quest of the Avatar

 * Publisher: JICC.
 * Author: Yuko Tanaka
 * Published: 1988
 * Original List Price: 900¥ (about US$7)

Like in the first manga, many things of Ultima IV are VERY freely interpreted, or outright changed. Iolo mutates into a 14 year-old teenage girl named "Io" (see the cover) while Julia is gender-changed into a man named "Julio".

The Fall of Magincia

 * Publisher: JICC
 * Published: 1990.

Sadly there is no information available about this one.

The Maze of Schwarzschild

 * Publisher: JICC.
 * Author: Seiji Tanaka
 * Published: Nov. 15, 1991
 * Original List Price: ¥980