Hogan Reviews

I’ll put up my hand and admit that I’ve never given Majora’s Mask a proper go, I didn’t like the timed aspect when I read about it at the time of its release and since then despite hearing how good it is I’ve yet to make time to play through it. So reading the Majora’s Mask manga has been interesting, though admittedly over the many years I do know all the major beats of the story so it wasn’t exactly reading it fresh it was still a different experience to the Ocarina of Time story I reviewed earlier. There’s also a fun original story about the creation of Majora’s Mask that was a good little read added on. So, let’s take a look!

For those not in the know about the overall framework of the story a naïve “Skull Kid” steals the magical Majora’s Mask and puts it on, turning him into an extremely powerful yet still childlike and mischievous God-like being. Meanwhile this is the timeline where Link was returned to his child body before the events of Ocarina, thus preventing them from happening but leaving him stuck in his old child body and without any of the friends or allies he made during his adventure. While heading into a forest in search of his fairy companion Navi Link comes across the Skull Kid and two fairies called Tael and Tatl, and soon has his Ocarina stolen, gets turned into a “Deku Scrub” and transported to the land of Termina for good measure (alongside Tatl, who blames Link for being separated from her sister). There he finds it impossible for people to give him a straight answer due to his new form but does find comfort with local woman Anju, who is pining for her lost love Kafei. Link soon finds out that Skull Kid plans to drop the moon on the land of Termina… and after finding him is powerless to stop him!

The End. Well, that was a quick read!

Just as the moon hits though time rewinds, Link grabs his Ocarina and plays the song of time and travels back three days before the disaster alongside Tatl, with Tael telling them to bring together four “people” from the swamp, mountain, sea and valley to stop Kid just before time resets. Link finds he is in his normal body with the Deku mask on the floor and meets the Happy Mask Salesman, who tells him about the powerful masks and how Skull Kid stole Majora’s Mask from him. Link meets Anju but she has no idea who he is, meaning it’s only Link and Tatl that have gone back in time, not that time has been reversed. It’s a very odd set up, but after that we have several chapters of Link visiting the four locations, dealing with side quests from locals and releasing weird Giants who are the four people Tael talked about. In each location he uses a relevant mask, the Deku one again in the swamp, a Goron one in the mountains and a Zora one in the Great Bay, and helps a leader or warrior of each tribe with the previously mentioned quests, apart from the valley, which is a quick page or two of Link defeating the “Twinmold” boss and that’s it.

Link and Tatl return to the Clock Tower and meet back up with Anju, who is once again lamenting that her beloved Kafei isn’t here for their marriage ceremony during the carnival. At this point Link spots a child who attempts to run and soon its revealed that the boy is Kafei, cursed to look like a child by a mask forced on him by Skull Kid. He begs Link not to tell Anju because he can’t possibly face her like that, and soon Link and Tatl approach the Clock Tower to confront Skull Kid for one final time…

It’s actually funny how quickly I got used to reading Link saying actual dialogue after all these years of silent protagonists! (Ignoring the cartoon anyway…)

It’s a good, condensed telling, no doubt leaving out loads of side content but that can’t be helped. It does include an original chapter where we see Majora was actually a weird furry dragon-like thing and eons ago a hero who is at least Hylian if not a straight up Link descendent arrives and Majora assumes he’s here to take his magic wish-granting armour but the traveller says he isn’t and instead upon hearing of Majora’s evil ambitions he plays on a drum, a drumbeat that causes Majora to dance, and dance, and dance for three days straight until it dies. Damn. The traveller then carves a mask out of his magic armour, the titular Majora’s Mask. This is apparently why Majora wants to end the world in three days and dances in some of its later forms. Either way it was a fun short story with great artwork!

Overall Thoughts:

Two really great original designs here. Akira Himekawa shows he’s more than fan adaptation!

Majora’s Mask was another fun read, with great artwork and Link himself is given an endearing enough personality and voice to happily follow him on his journey. I’m sure if I were super-into the original game I’d be able to tell you more about what was left out or not, but as it is it’s a fun recap of the game without going overly long. Oddly the bonus chapter was probably my favourite part!

Kafei confronts Skull Kid before Link does and begs for him to undo the curse but it just makes the Kid laugh, Anju soon arrives and embraces the child Kafei anyway as all hope seems lost, even after Link plays a song on the Ocarina to bring the four giants to the town, but just in the nick of time they arrive and catch the moon, and pushing it back up into the sky. Skull Kid throws a temper tantrum about how his spiral into unhappiness started when the four giants he used to play with left him behind and vanished, and now they’re back but against him. Majora’s Mask then takes over completely, gives Link the “Fierce Deity Mask” and challenges him to face him in the mouth of the moon.

“Fierce Deity Link” in all his full page glory.

Link puts the mask on, heads there and despite some transformations Link defeats Majora, turning it back into a mask, then slashes the mask in half when the Happy Mask Salesman tries to take it back. This leads to a “everyone is happy” ending with Link riding off back to Hyrule, Anju and a returned to adult Kafei getting married and Skull Kid is told by the giants they’ll always be friends even if they’re apart, plus Link and the fairies say they’ll play with him again in the future, so Kid happily carves an image of all his friends playing together…