Page 1

[The first page of the magazine version, which shows Remilia being told of the airship emergency and Dain spotting the airship. Omits the tankoubon's opening Dain-Ghaleon "bird" exchange on the night of the storm and a shocked/worried close-up of Remilia's face. The panels are also rather crowded in the magazine's version - the tankoubon's version of this scene unfolds over two pages.]

LUNAR

Tamashii no Kokuhaku [Confession of the Soul]
(part of Vheen Hikuusen Monogatari [Vheen Airship Story])

After I drew Younenki no Owari [Childhood's End], I began to have some misgivings.
Of course, the manga was adapted from a game, but I was told that "people who aren't familiar with the game won't understand it".
Of course, this was primarily due to my own failings, but it was disconcerting to have the game's characters just dropped into the proceedings without introduction.

[The magazine's version of the tankoubon's pgs. 24-26, showing a befuddled Dain being told the way to Vheen ("up") and Remilia and one of her assistants discussing Dain and Ghaleon's arrival in the city. The magazine again crowds and crops many panels, and several shots of Dain and Ghaleon beaming up to Vheen and close-ups of Remilia's assistant were cut (as was some of the dialogue, which seems to have been "condensed" Reader's Digest-style). The slightly cheesecakey scene of Remilia zipping up her dress in the magazine was removed from the tankubon.]

The Saturn version of Lunar 1 happened to be released at the same time this manga was published.
Since I was working on an original piece, my highest priority was to detemine how I should handle the material.
I decided it would be better not to resort to a "save the world" plot.
With no world crisis to deal with, I would have plenty of chances to focus on character development and interaction.
I thought that the characters should be easily recognizable and follow from their depictions in the game magazines and compendiums, so that readers would easily transfer their feelings for them onto their manga incarnations.
But that would alienate readers who had no previous knowledge of the characters - give them the sense of "everybody knows what's going on here but me", so to speak.
I didn't like that, so I insisted on making it the story of three nameless people.

[The magazine's version of tankoubon pgs. 36-39, Remilia and her assistants discovering Dain and persuading/tricking him into telling him how Ghaleon managed to get them to Vheen. Panel-crowding and panel omission again - several reaction shots from the assistants and several scenes of Ghaleon fixing the transmission spring. And, of course, the action of four pages is condensed to two in the magazine. Ghaleon gazing out the window at the ruins is left relatively intact, just a little "squished".]

These pages come from the magazine version of the story.
I've published them because I gotten a lot of inquiries from readers about what dialogue and panels were redone for the version included in the book.
I did redraw some other pictures not shown here.

To tell the truth, I had really wanted to redo some parts since I first drew the manga.

Page 2

[Magazine version of tankoubon's pgs. 55-57, Remilia at night watching for the lamps to be sent up to tell her how much energy the ship has left and Ghaleon assembling the control device in the ruins and telling Dain to go get something to eat. Three pages condensed to two, pic of Dain watching Ghaleon assemble device and pics and dialogue of assistant comforting Remilia omitted.]

In the original edition, the scene in the library ended with Remilia sitting down after being ignored by Ghaleon [versus Ghaleon coming up and wordlessly taking the books from her in the tankoubon].
There were scenes that I wanted to develop through more than one page that I fleshed out in the tankoubon.
In the Lunar I drew, there is tension between the magic race and the human race.
Sometimes readers get confused by this...
I was surprised to see that there was a scene in the Magic School manga (I just happened to sneak a peek at a few pages of it in a bookstore) where the heroine was shocked to discover that she was of the magic race (do I have that right? Please point it out to me if I don't).

[Magazine version of Ghaleon casting big big spell to save airship, cobbled together from tankoubon pgs. 79 & 81. Omits close-ups of Dain and Ghaleon's faces and shots around Vheen of everyone praying.]

The cause of the tension between the magic race and the humans was their methods and sources of casting magic.
In the Funato Lunar, the magic race was magic power made flesh (and was granted very long life because of it), and so they don't need to use incantations - casting magic is as natural as breathing for them - but since the magic power of humans is half-borrowed, they cannot cast magic of any kind without considerable effort.
(This seems to have had a heavy influence on the novelizations.)
After "Kokuhaku Suru Kioku", a war broke out between the magic race and the humans, and the magic race, overconfident that their ability to cast magic without relying on incantations would give them an absolute advantage, was defeated... They weren't prepared, I guess.

[Magazine version of tankoubon pg. 85, Remilia's mother greeting Ghaleon. Omits...nothing, believe it or not.]

At about that time, I got an idea in my head to do a story about Ghaleon's youth. I just couldn't wait to carry it out!
(Incidentally, at first, I thought about setting the story when Ghaleon's brother was sill alive... At the time, the story idea was that Ghaleon's brother, in his dying days, would use the airship to fly away from Vheen and land on earth, and Ghaleon would chase after him, but now, I can't picture it, and the editor [Kei Shigema, presumably] didn't like it.)
One could say that "Tamashii no Kokuhaku" was a stepping-stone to "Kokuhaku Suru Kioku". Sorry, Remilia-chan.
I wanted to draw the history of Vheen and Ghaleon.

I wonder what stern-faced oniisama [reference to Ghaleon's brother, Zain] would have to say about that?
Pages 86 and 87 took me three whole days of hurried drawing to do. Thanks to them, I had no free time during that whole period.

Page 3

[OK, now, here, Funato gives ua a flowchart of "The Succession of Guildmistresses from 'Kokuhaku Suru Kioku' to 'Tamashii no Kokuhaku'" assembled from pics from the aforementioned pgs. 86-87, which starts at Nia (from 'Kokuhaku Suru Kioku') and ends at Remilia's mother (that's what the caption beneath her pic says). Thin, handdrawn arrows connect younger Ausas to older incarnations of themselves, while thick pink arrows with a kanji symbol (for "daughter") on them connect a mother to her daughter.]

EXTRA.

[A pic from "Kioku Suru Fuukei" of one of Dain's fellow juvenile delinquents sitting in the tree (he's colored in to make him stand out - the foreground's fairly cluttered).] As you can see, I've added some color here, since I thought it'd help to illustrate my point.
No one noticed it (naturally), but this's Arhes's [Alex's] father... [Aargh! Dang! I thought this kid looked vaguely familiar, but I never made the connection!]

He also ran away from the village many times [like Dain, presumably], but was brought back each time.

[Warning: sentence I don't completely understand approaching.] Incidentally, Beruno Ootsuki-chan really liked Dain's grandfather - she said "he's like Sub-chan of the northern islands". [No, I have no idea whom "Sub-chan" is (I searched the net, and the closest I came up with was a minor Kimagure Orange Road character) or what the "northern islands" mentioned are. Help?]

Just about the time I got a job on Lunar, I told Shigema-san about an idea for a story where "Ghaleon, while traveling, catches a chicken thief coming out of a barn in a village, and when he looks at him, we see it's Dain" that I really liked, and since he thought it would make a perfect prologue, he authorized it, and I drew it up for him.

Disclaimer: Lunar, Vheen Hikuusen Monogatari, "Kioku Suru Fuukei", and all related official works are property of Game Arts, Asuka DX, Shounen Ace, Akari Funato, and/or Working Designs; this document isn't affiliated with either. Translation by R. Capowski at RACapowski@worldnet.att.net; please don't repost it without permission. Kinda-sorta credit cookie - if you're a Ghaleon fan, I recommend you check out Piyo Piyo's page - it's a neat li'l fan page with a small but quality collection of Ghaleon fanart. (This mention sounds completely inept, but I love the page so much that I just had to plug it.)