Saturday, July 30, 2022

Twilight Princess Manga, Vol. 7 & 8

The seventh volume of the Twilight Princess manga probably contains one of its most memorable scenes: Link climbing a steep mountain wall just like in Breath of the Wild. It's just the best reference they could have done.

No, of course I'm talking about the part in Hyrule Castle, where Ganondorf invites Zelda to a cup of tea and they discuss the events of the child timeline. The Triforce of Wisdom let Zelda "awaken", so she knew of her past incarnations' doing to send the Hero of Time back in time, thus changing the course of history, which led to Ganondorf's execution.

When banished into the Twilight Realm, Ganondorf also became aware of what changed his fate. So, he puts Zelda at a fancy table and asks her what she knows about all of those shenanigans. And it's really nice how the manga dives deeper into the lore created by Hyrule Historia, putting together the events of Ocarina of Time and Twilight Princess.

It also doesn't stop there, where the Hero's Spirit is finally confirmed to be the Hero of Time. There is this amazing scene in the Temple of Time where Link sees the Hero of Time drawing the Master Sword and becoming an adult. You can also see briefly how the previous hero looks as an older man in the first half of the volume, where Link gets nurtured by a girl named Anika in some vacant village, which probably could have been the Hidden Village. But it's somewhat unclear (at least to me) how the Hero of Time made it into the Twilight Realm, where he stood at Midna's side as the golden wolf. So, it feels like a bit of a mess.

At the beginning of the eighth volume the Hero's Spirit then trains the new hero in most of the Hidden Skills, like the Back Slide, the Helm Splitter, and the Mortal Draw. It feels a little bit video-game'ish, but I suppose this came with the territory of a more accurate translation. But it probably could have worked without the Hero's Spirit explaining these techniques in details. Just show them training and then the fruits of that labor.

Anyway, the rest of the eighth volume dealt with the City in the Sky and wasn't as good overall. Midna activates the cannon found under the church in Kakariko Village, which comically blows away the roof, complaining how the people of the Light World can't get anything done themselves. This doesn't sit right, considering how they needed some clown to fix said cannon in the game.

And there is more weird stuff coming ahead, not just the Oocca themsevles. Argorok is actually not a Kargarok mutated by the Mirror Shard, which is a popular fan theory, but some golden dragon deity, which normally protects the City of Sky. Now it does the opposite, where is there is this funny scene with an Oocca stating that over two thirds of the City of the Sky already got destroyed by the dragon.

For Shad, who has joined Link on his travel to the sky city, this is actually a motivation to fight the dragon, because he wants as much of the city to be preserved as possible. During one point of Link's battle against Argorok, where in the manga he also fights an Aeralfos at the same time, he loses the Master Sword and it sticks into the ground. Then Shad comes to save the day, where he is able to quickly pull it out and throw it into the Aeralfos by accident.

Like... okay? Is Shad also a chosen hero now? Can anyone just take the Master Sword as long as it doesn't rest on its usual pedestal? Or maybe this is yet another reference to Breath of the Wild, where even a Moblin can take the Master Sword when it finds its way through the Lost Woods? We will probably never know...

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