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It’s finally happening! My very first Legends of Localization book is now available! You can get it two ways: by itself for $29, or as part of a deluxe bundle with extra goodies for $35!

Legends of Localization, Book 1: The Legend of Zelda

This first book is about the original Legend of Zelda and how it was localized from Japanese into English. It’s similar to this, except I pretty much rewrote it all from scratch, did a lot more research, added a ton of new content, corrected many mistakes, and added many more details!

This book has 208 full-color pages and a hardback cover. It comes with a Japanese-style book “obi” which can be unfolded to reveal a nifty timeline on the reverse side. The book also comes packed with a localization survey postcard that you can send back or just keep as a decoration.

Right now, Fangamer is selling the book for $29, and if you’re reading this just after I posted it then Fangamer’s Black Friday sale means you’ll get free shipping! (For more info on Fangamer’s shipping, including international shipping, see here.)

Deluxe Bundle!

You can also get the book as part of what I call the “Deluxe Bundle”, which includes the book and a separate booklet I made called “Passport to the Legend of Zelda”.

It’s basically a little, passport-sized book filled with Japanese character charts, grammar explanations, and a full dictionary of every single word and phrase in the Japanese version of The Legend of Zelda . If you’ve ever wanted to take a stab at the original Japanese version of the game and read the Japanese text for yourself, now you can! And you’ll learn basic Japanese in the process that you can use to play other games!

The booklet also has some art and some other passport-y stuff to it, including suggestions for things to look for if you journey into the Japanese version of the game.

I always wanted something like this when I first started learning Japanese, so now I’ve gone and made one 😛 I’m hoping to make a similar booklet for many other games, although each one might be different in nature. This Zelda one focuses on teaching katakana and some simple grammar, so if you’ve been interested in learning Japanese but just never gotten around to it, give this passport a shot!

The book + passport Deluxe Bundle is currently $35. If you were to get them individually they’d come out to $38, so the bundle’s the way to go!

UDPATE: You can also order the Passport on its own if you want here!

Limited Edition Stuff!

The first 500 orders of the Deluxe Bundle will get even more goodies at no extra cost! In all, you’ll get:

Legends of Localization, Book 1: The Legend of Zelda

Timeline obi

Localization postcard

Passport to The Legend of Zelda

Limited edition Legends of Localization bookmark

Gold foil bookplate hand-signed by me and everyone on the book-making team (stick it in your book!)

But wait, there’s more – if you order the book or bundle, I’ll have Fangamer toss in a silly little Legends of Localization/Poemato CX business card too!

All of the limited edition stuff is now sold out. It sold so fast that future books won’t have any limited edition bonuses – they’ll all have bonuses!

Who’s This For?

This first Legends of Localization book covers the original Legend of Zelda game, but it’s actually packed with information about the rest of the series too, from The Adventure of Link all the way up to A Link Between Worlds . I also wrote everything while considering readers who might not be super-familiar with the game, so even if you’ve never played it before – or even if you’re not much of a gamer – you won’t be overwhelmed.

On that same note, the book also contains a lot of personal insight and info about the translation and localization process, so if you’re an aspiring translator or localizer, this book is also right up your alley!

And lastly, I created the passport so that people don’t have to take my word on everything – with it, you’ll be able to dig into the Japanese game’s text yourself and see how everything is different. I tried to make it as straightforward and simple as possible, so it could be a great first step for anyone curious about the Japanese language. If it means anything, the way it works is modeled after the way I first got into Japanese many years ago!

Looking Forward

We’ll soon be starting on our second book about EarthBound’s localization… it’s going to be huge 😯 What comes after that depends on how well these books do – I’m hoping if that they do well enough, I’ll be able to focus on more books and more articles on the site. My dream is to be able to do more and more of this sort of thing in the future. So spread the word if you can!

Also, if you do pick up the Zelda book, let me know what you think. Is the writing too stiff? Too loose? Is the text too small? Did I skip any obvious topics? Did I mess anything up? Should I include scratch-and-sniff stickers next time? This is my first journey into book authordom, so I need lots of experience points before I can level up!