Friday, May 27, 2016

Excuse me, Episode 1 - The Ringer

Let's watch the Zelda Animated Series! I'm not kidding, with the announcement of a possible Zelda Anime movie, I thought it could be a fun idea to watch the Zelda TV series again and blog some silly thoughts about the episodes.

The show is essentially a "guilty pleasure" for me. I know it's bad, you know it's bad, but I still enjoyed the show for what it was. It's different from the CD-i games, which are entertaining, because they are so terribly awful and trashy. Here I actually enjoy the setting and the whole humor of the show, even if it's nothing like the actual characters from the games. Link is a horny jerk, Zelda is a Tsundere and Ganon is just nuts...

There already has been a post on this blog called The Adventures of Stink, which summarizes both the show and the Valiant Comics. This time I will go through all episodes individually, so there's going to be a lot more quantity and a lot less quality. I will make one post per episode and probably keep this going until E3, where we finally should get some new topics to talk about besides Hyrule Warriors. You can also watch the series with me, if you really want, where you can find a playlist by Retro Gaming Shows on Youtube.


Let's start with Episode 1, "The Ringer". I'm not even sure, what "the Ringer" means. It means "wrestler" in German, but instead of a wrestling contest, there's a wizard contest held in Hyrule Castle, which Ganon uses to sneak in by disguise to steal the Triforce of Wisdom. The Triforce actually talks in the TV series and this leads to the hilarious moment, where Ganon essentially tells the Triforce to shut it, because it lectures him about good and evil.

Another funny Ganon moment is towards the end, where he shows a Stalfos, how to go at Link and Zelda. Ganon doesn't really strike you as a fighter in the TV show at all, while Zelda really does. There are some other ridiculous moments in this episode, where the most ridiculous one is Zelda's attempt of catching up to Ganon. Instead of saddling horses to pursue him, she uses the magic of some newbie wizard from the contest to create a beanstalk catapult for Link and herself. Very smart plan.

Link also does have a fairy companion. At least in that sense they were ahead of their time, because something like a fairy companion didn't get introduced until Ocarina of Time in 1998, while the show aired 1989. The fairy's name is Spryte and she essentially is the Lana of the show, because she has a crush on Link, while he runs after Zelda. And she has this CD-i character quality close-up at the end of the episode, which is really creepy...

I do like, how they handled the beginning, introducing the whole setting. Link fancily lives in Hyrule Castle (which supposedly is the Northern Castle from Zelda II) and gets bored from staying inside all day long, having to protect the Triforce of Wisdom. But he does enjoy the view on Zelda in the morning, where he whistles at her like your average street corner jerkboy, which just made me laugh hard. It's all so completely out of character, which makes this entertaining to watch in its own unique way.

"Eat dirt, Ganon!" - Link

1 comment:

Eduardo Jencarelli said...

Spryte reminds me of Cutie, the fairy sidekick character from the NES/arcade action title Astyanax.