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Apr 27, 2024
Both of the Ranmaru Zelda mangas are very obscure - less than 500 people have them in their lists total as of writing this, and you don't see much discussion online either. This is no doubt mostly due to the inaccessibility of them. The physical Japanese volumes nowadays cost like $150 or more on ebay, they were never officially translated, and fan scans and translations are quite hard to find. This is a shame, however, because The Legend of Zelda by Ranmaru is about as good as an 80s manga adaptation of a video game can get.
The story is basically an expanded story of the
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video game. It touches on all the major beats, which in the first Zelda game consisted of a simple loop - exploration of the overworld, discovery of a temple, exploration of the temple, beating the boss at the end and then moving on. It condenses a great deal of the journey, as not all of the dungeons are shown in full. Instead, the story is padded a bit by addition of characters, villages and storylines that were not present in the original, due to the simple nature of the game. It adds a bit more character to the land of Hyrule, and makes the whole journey a bit more personal. At some points it does give little hints for the gameplay, just like a game manual might, but it was more cheeky than anything, integrated in the dialogue, and didn't feel at all forced.
The manga makes a choice of adding the first ever companion to Link, a talking parrot named Watt. It's there so Link is not just silent all the time, and has someone to bounce off of. Both of them serve as pretty good protagonists. Link is more serious and stoic (though not too serious, this IS a manga for children after all), and Watt is his silly and unserious foil. Talking animal companions in kids' manga can get pretty annoying, but Watt never overstays his welcome.
The art is a highlight of this manga. The cartoony style is perfect for a game such as Zelda 1, and the monsters are like straight out of the game manual. All the locations are faithful to the game, but done in a level of detail and care that really brings the world to life. It depicts the temples and creatures pretty much how a child may imagine when they are playing the game.
Overall it's a very charming manga that deserves more recognition, not only if you're a fan of Zelda.
8/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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Oct 23, 2023
For full transparency, I went into this fully expecting something bad that I could mock after seeing that one panel of the MC crying about being hetero, and I did get a few laugh out of it, however the final chapter made me actually so pissed off I had to write this. Full spoilers ahead.
30 years ago a meteor fell on earth that made everybody gay. Yes, everybody instantly became strictly homosexual overnight. What about bisexuals or asexuals, and other such people I hear you say? Don't worry about it. This included complex biological changes that made it possible for homosexual pairs to become pregnant
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with each other's children. How? Don't worry about it, the author certainly doesn't.
The main character is *gasp* a heterosexual girl named Kazusa who's in love with her male best friend, Ayumu. Ayumu's grandpa was the last living heterosexual (yes, really) because he was in space the day the hometeor fell. Cue ten insufferable chapters of Ayumu getting obliviously close to Kazusa and her going 'waaaaaaaah I like him so much but I am a Freak straight boohoo', and this goes on and on and on. She eventually finds another hetero, a boy named Shiina. They bond over being heteros (yes, that's their only connecting trait), until Shiina confesses his love for Kazusa (again, just because she is also straight). She rejects him and confesses her love to Ayumu.
Now here lies my biggest gripe. Ayumu turns out to be gay. And at this point I thought 'Ok, the author is probably going for a platonic ending, showing there is more to love than romantic feelings, nice!'. But then it ends with them two dating?? Despite him clearly not being into her Like That? And I'm left wondering what was the author's intention with the messaging here.
The story is ridiculous and batshit, don't get me wrong. There's plenty to laugh at here, especially if you're LGBT+ and you understand the ridiculousness of it all. But when I look at the series as a whole I am truly baffled as to what the author wanted to say.
The museum exhibit of Heterosexuality (yes, really) portrays the straight couples of old as just happy. Smiling, idyllic. The main character even points this out, that they all look so joyful. The two straight characters are constantly worried about being found out to be straight, they fear discrimination. But... why? In just 30 years, would the world really move into 'hatecriming the straights'? In the final chapter there's even a couple that decided to stay married after the meteor, despite not loving each other anymore, and it is never stated that they would face any sort of discrimination from the adults. They are shown to argue and bicker, but that 'this is what's best for them'. This, coupled with the MCs deciding to date each other anyway, REEKS of the age old homophobic rhetoric of 'you can push past it, if you find a nice partner of the opposite sex, your homosexuality will be cured!'.
This entire manga, despite being ridiculous as f*ck, oozes of homophobic tropes, and I would truly only recommend it to point and laugh at it.
1/10, never write anything again.
Reviewer’s Rating: 1
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Aug 7, 2020
After so many instances of hearing people talk about this manga and hyping it up, claiming it was full of suspense and mystery, I finally caved in and gave it a shot. I went in with full expectations. And I came out thinking just one thing:
My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.
Art: 7
The art wasn't very distinctive or unique, but it wasn't bad either. It was just fine. In some instances, like murder scenes or moments of 'suspense', the quality got slightly higher, but it still wasn't much to write home about.
Characters: 2
This is the second biggest thing I dislike about this
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manga. The characters are bland and boring with zero to no development. Only two or three of them got a smidge of backstory. Each of the characters fit a certain archetype and most of them come off as annoying. In a horror setting the reader/viewer should be able to connect with the characters in order to actually feel something when they die, but in Doubt I very much didn't care.
Story: 1
Boring and predictable. I could see the 'twist' coming from a mile away, and when the second twist came I literally looked up and thought to myself: "Well that's f**king stupid." I didn't see the second one coming because I genuinely thought the author wouldn't *actually* go there, that maybe the plot could be salvageable, but nope. The motivation of the villain was laughable at best and the ending was the final nail in the coffin for me because of how insulting it felt.
Overall: 2
Honestly, there are way better death game manga/anime out there than this. It took me like an hour and a half to plow through this, but I still felt like I wasted my time. Don't waste yours.
Reviewer’s Rating: 2
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Jan 24, 2019
I only gave it a 3/10 because it made me laugh so god damn hard. There are no intentionally funny scenes in this manga though, but the sheer incompetence at writing anything remotely similar to a dramatic shoujo was extremely hilarious to me.
The characters are basically non-existent, they're the typical 'stoic older guy' and 'younger naive girl' archetypes done in shoujo a million times before. The story makes no sense at all, especially the marriage component. The art is standard shoujo style number 3, that every other shoujo manga has. Seriously, this has nothing in value except for unintentional comedy.
I don't think there is
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anything more to write here. Just read it for yourself, it's short and very much worth it, if you like the 'so bad it's good' genre that is.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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