My Whirlwind Manu Collection

[fcgamer]

As the Chinese New Year holiday quickly approaches, I've decided to use the time to organize some of the messier portions of my collection.  I thought that I would post some pics and talk a bit about Whirlwind Manu, for those who are interested.

My personal interest in Manu game about after stumbling upon a product catalog of sorts for Whirlwind Manu, which had been offered for sale (at quite an expensive price).  I took a chance and bought the catalog, and began dreaming how it would be sort of neat (and stupid too, I suppose) to try to collect all of the Whirlwind Manu carts listed in the book.  I toyed with the idea for about half a year or so, but I never went out of my way to get any of their carts except when I stumbled upon them in the wild.





Fast forward to today, and I have about 1/4 of the known set of games to be released by this Whirlwind Manu company.  I am always on the lookout for more titles for my ever growing collection, but unless I am buying in bulk, shipping just makes it so not worth it to try to buy these carts singly from abroad.

Basically, the Whirlwind Manu carts are broken down into various series', each starting with the letter L (and then a second letter and a number).  Anyone that has seen pirated Famicom carts has seem some of these in their time, I think.  Below are some pictures of the Whirlwind Manu carts I have:


LA Series:




LB Series:




LC Series:




LD Series:




LE Series:




LF Series:




LG Series:




The other question that many might ask is as follows:  Was Whirlwind Manu really just one company?  The answer to that, imo, is no.  Besides the variety of cases found, I've discovered some Whirlwind Manu games with NTDEC credits in the game title screen, some with real credits intact, and I've even found one Whirlwind Manu-labeled game from Waixing (a Chinese translation of Dragon Warrior III I think it was).  One guess would be that Whirlwind Manu just made the labels for these games, another guess would be that pirate outfits just copied the artwork from Whirlwind Manu, not having access to real/legit artwork.  It's really hard to say, but I'd thought I would post about this mysterious company.

Enjoy!

[MaxXimus]

I had that athena cart listed in the catalog.  I cant find it now though... when I saw the picture I got excited because the game means nothing to me but possibly something to you. I totally was planning on just sending you it for free, but sadly as stated, I can't find it. Sigh...

[fcgamer]

Hey bro- no worries thanks for the thought though


I always like the bootleg carts where some company info is known

[L___E___T]

Have you scanned the catalogue in case anything ever happened to it?  That's a museum piece right there...

[MaxXimus]

I just went through my Famicom cartridges and noticed I have what I believe to be 7 Whirlwind Manu cartridges.

LA40 Battle City
LB07 Mach Rider
LB35 Dream Mary
LC04 Mighty Bomb Jack
LC10 Arkanoid
LD07 ()
LF40 ()

LB07 LC04 LC10 and LD07 are all branded with Whirlwind Manu. I'd be happy to take a picture.

[Oreanor]

Have you scanned the catalogue in case anything ever happened to it?  That's a museum piece right there...

vote for scanning. pleeease! 

[L___E___T]

Glad somebody raised it - but totally understand if it's not preferred.  In addition, if you decide to sell it on, you know who to call

[Oreanor]

if you decide to sell it on, you know who to call

yeah! 

[fcgamer]

If I can scan this, I will guys.  To be honest, I gave up on my Whirlwind Manu collection, as I just hadn't found any new carts for that collection in about six months, and then I also ended up getting most of those games on official Famicom carts as well.  I think my girlfriend would have shit a brick if she saw that I had an official Pac Man cart, and then a Whirlwind Manu version, etc.  And to have this for 400 different games, where they are almost identical (even in quality...the old Whirlwind Manu carts are of superb quality, some almost identical to the real thing).  I know I would have a very hard time trying to justify this to my girlfriend, and an even harder time trying to justify it to myself, so I decided to let them go and sold a large amount (generously) to a buddy of mine in Poland, and some others to a great guy in Chile. 

As for the catalog itself though, that is a really special piece to me.  I love this sort of paper material - adverts, fliers, unused labels, old catalogs, etc, though I have only been able to find very few pieces of this sort.  So I am going to hold onto that one for a long time; however, I agree with you guys that it would be nice for something like this to be scanned, so that is a project I will at some point do.  It all comes down to time though, and the catalog is probably 60 pages or so.  The other factor is whether I can scan it without damaging the spine, something else that is important to me.

I will see what I can do though, and might even experiment with it a bit this afternoon, as long as something else doesn't come up.  But I will try to scan it before the year is out, so that is something you guys can look forward to

[Oreanor]

the words of a man! 

[H4M573R]

hello everyone!!
so, i am "the great guy from chile"

my attempt to collect the more whirl~manu carts as possible seems to be a little bit impossible (considering that these carts never exist in my country) this is a infinite collection!! but i am glad to meet this great man, giving to me the chance to get a huge part of his collection (I didnt know he was collecting this set too, is a very heroic act on his part).
so, i think that "whirlwind manu" are the "pirate-original" set of games. because i have a lot labeled as "cassette" and "tv game cart" (lacks whirlwind manu word) so, the LXX carts without whirlwind manu texts maybe pirates of pirates!!

some games were credited as NTDEC (software and plastic case).. idk why, lol, another ones are title removed, but taiwanese carts has no software mods.

also, i have a theory about whirl~manu carts worldwide:

asia=good quality
rest of the world=globs

it is because shipping maybe

i got a interesting portion of my W-M colelction  from argentina. the plastic cases are different, great quality. but 100% of PCBs are globs.

seems to be that taiwanese sells PCBs and labels only (note that PCB has the game code printed on it), in order to do a cheaper and small shipping. it replying at the poor intelligence to put the labels in the plastic cases

by other side, some taiwanese W-M carts are assembled by kaiser or something, because the PCB and ICs says KS, same as my salamander clone credited as KAISER instead KONAMI. the kaiser cassette is the "namco-like" cart with counter-label in japanese language) that is odd

please note that argentina in 90s was the same way as russia

not dendy, but froggy!
not steepler, but electrolab katon and edu!

and off course.. all from asia, and re-labeled/boxed





lol. a lot of words, a few picts of my humble collection
(and please forgive my awful english)

[fcgamer]

Good to see you on here, my friend 

As for the catalog, as some of you know, I got a kitten towards the end of last year, and around that time my scanner stopped working.  I think there is a correlation, i.e. from his constant jumping on the scanner / my computer.  But I got a new computer for Christmas, so I will try to see if I can get it to work with the new computer, and then scan the catalog.

So the catalog will be scanned, at some point, I just need to find a work around to the scanner issue.

[H4M573R]

hella yellah! your catalog is a masterpiece.
some W-M games are IMPOSSIBLE to find. i am planning to do via repro carts, your catalog is a huge database of W-M labels

we are impacient!!

[fcgamer]

I also have a Honey Bee catalog, though it is much less interesting (very little Famicom stuff in it)

[L___E___T]

 

FCgamer do you know what company these are from?








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