Question about Farewell, Beloved Falco Manga

[Blackfox]

TLDR Version: Wondering what people know about the physical copy of this manga.

So I'm sure some of you know about the Starfox Adventures Manga "Starfox: Farewell, Beloved Falco" it was a manga made for the Japanese market to explain the absence of Falco in Starfox Adventures.  I remember it being online only back in the day with a English translated version.  However, I saw a physical copy on ebay and picked it up.  From my research some sites say it was bundled with Adventures others that it was online only.  However I could never find a Japanese Starfox adventures with it bundled on ebay and I don't think that's correct information, unless they somehow crammed the thing into the way too small manual.

So anyways when I received my copy it looks like this. 

 

 

My guess is that with the "Take Free" this manga was not in fact bundled with the Starfox Adventures game but more of a promotion advert for the game to get people unfamiliar with Starfox 64 (There is a single page at the start with the Story of SF64) updated and interested in the new game and explain what happened between the two games to those who are familiar.

So I was wondering if anybody knows about physical copies of the Manga and if my theory is right or if there is a physical copy bundled with Starfox Adventures in Japan?

[SF Redd]

This is the first time I've seen a physical copy of the manga, but then, I'm not Japanese. If I had to guess, the manga might've come with a special edition of the game, but I have nothing to back that up. I'm not sure why it wasn't released outside of Japan. maybe translating it would've been too much of a hassle, or maybe printing different versions with different languages might've been too expensive. I'm sure people would've liked it. I've always been of the opinion that Nintendo don't utilize Star Fox nearly as much as they could.

I'd love to have one of those mangas, so now that I know that there's still some floating about out there, I'll keep an eye out for it.

[Blackfox]

Yeah, I know it wouldn't have been too hard to translate over as it was already printed in a left to right page order, so I think there may have been plans to bring it to English that didn't come to fruition.  I know the market for Starfox wasn't as strong in Japan as it was in Europe and North America markets so this manga may have been a way to bridge and explain what happen in previous games and in between games to Japanese markets to those that haven't played SF64 to drum up support.   I know I've read it was packaged with Starfox Adventures on various Wiki's but I have yet to see any proof of such.  The manga itself says "Take Free" on the cover suggesting something like a promotion that may have been given away with the games.  The dimensions width wise fit in a north american GC case but is too short for both clasps to hold it properly.  Unless Japanese game cases are shorter.  It's also quite thick so packaging a manual and the manga is not practical.  I don't see it being included in the case.   I found in on Ebay under Starfox Manga. It cost way too much though, but I never see them so I had to get it.

[PsychoDKR]

That's awesome, definitely the first time I've seen a physical copy of it. Shame we didn't get it here.