More than 30 years after its original release, the first act of a rare manga spin-off to Konami's cyberpunk adventure Snatcher has just been preserved online by fans.
Initially released in 1988 for the NEC-PC8801 and MSX2 (and later ported to the PC-Engine Super CD-ROM², Sega CD/Mega CD, Sony PlayStation, and Sega Saturn), the video game of Snatcher saw players take control of Gillian Seed, a Junker agent tasked with hunting down dangerous humanoid robots known as "Snatchers" in the futuristic metropolis of Neo Kobe City.
Hideo Kojima (who at this point had already released the Metal Gear game) provided the scenario for the game, notably taking inspiration from several popular science fiction films of the time like Blade Runner, The Terminator, and Akira, to try to create a more cinematic type of video game experience.
As for the manga, it was the work of the Japanese illustrator and animator Osamu Kobayashi (who sadly passed away in 2021) and had very little to do with the original game, besides sharing the same setting, focusing on a brand new character named Nirasawa.
It was published as a serial in the Japanese magazine Monthly ASCII Comics between February to October 1993 and was never republished as a standalone book, making it relatively rare to come across today.
According to @SegaSky, the individual who announced the news, he was responsible for providing the physical book for scanning, while another user named @bblm2 was the person who did the scanning and cleanup work.
Right now, the pair has only managed to scan and upload the very first volume, but they have plans to do the rest in the future, with the intention being to preserve the entirety of the Monthly ASCII Comics run. As @SegaSky states, none of these comics will be translated into English, so you will either need some knowledge of Japanese to be able to understand what's going on or access to "a translation app or program".
You can find the first volume here. We also recommend checking out this blog post from thearkhound, which features a translation from Kobayashi's 2014 artbook, One Night City, where he talks about his work on the manga.