The Back Cover: Dragons and Bongos

Hello and welcome back to The Back Cover, the series that brings you all some insight to The Legend of Zelda franchise’s manga counterpart. For those of you who don’t know, there are ten manga books for the Zelda franchise, written by Akira Himekawa, covering eight of the main series titles. Reading about Link solve endless puzzles in various dungeons probably wouldn’t sell well, so the stories told in the manga series tend to differ from the video games, but still keep the plot of their respective game. With the release of Majora’s Mask 3D coming up very soon,  this is the perfect time to look at what the manga has to say about the origins of the haunted mask. Obviously, this article contains spoilers for the manga (though none for the game this time). Jump the link if you’d like to read more!

Majora’s Mask has always been one of the more mysterious Zelda titles. With tons of theories, fanfictions, and creepypastas made around it, you can see that a lot of the games questions are left unanswered. Where is Termina? What’s with the characters that resemble other characters from Ocarina of Time? Why does the game have such a dark theme? And finally, what is Majora’s Mask? At the beginning of the game, all the player learns about this mask is that it was an evil mask used for hexing rituals, and that its power was too great to be used by normal people. At the end of the game, the mask actually fights you, in a very playful and childlike manor. After defeating all three of its stages, the game ends, and the mask is returned to the Happy Mask Salesman. However, the mask’s origins are still left in the shadows. As usual, that’s quite the opposite in the manga.

Akira Himekawa actually started writing the Majora’s Mask manga before the game was released, so they weren’t allowed to use anything that gave away parts of the gameplay within the first chapter. After a lot of consideration, they decided to write something a bit about the origins of the game, like a myth or legend. This origin story is only a few pages long, but still manages to amaze its readers. The scene opens in a very desolate land, with only a few spires poking up from the ground. Living in this land is nothing but a great man-eating beast, who we can assume to be Majora. The story tells us that the beast had lived in that land for thousands of years, and hadn’t seen a human in a long time. Then comes a traveler, who stops by the beast to rest for a bit. Majora asks this traveler why he came, and after the traveler responds by saying he is just passing through, Majora becomes skeptical. The traveler seems to have no idea who or what Majora is, so Majora feels entitled to tell him. Majora says he is a beast that has lived there for thousands of years, and that his armor grants its wearer enormous power. A long time ago people from all over the world would try to take his armor, but he ate them all. The traveler still seems to never have heard of Majora’s story, but Majora then sees that the traveler is wearing armor underneath his clothes. After he sees the traveler’s armor, the traveler gets up and pulls out a drum. While asking Majora why he chooses to continue living if he has no one around him to live with, he starts to play a beat. Majora then starts to question his own existence, and yearns for a sense of time’s passage in his life. The traveler then tells him to dance the night away, and then he will feel like he is truly living. The story then says that Majora danced for three days, and on the fourth, fell over and died. The only part of Majora that was left was his armor, which the traveler gladly walks up to. It seems that the traveler was both tricking Majora into being defeated so he could take his armor, and so Majora could finally be at rest. Taking the armor, he sits down and begins to carve it with one of Majora’s razor-sharp feathers. After a while, he finishes carving, and holds a mask in his hands. That mask was Majora’s Mask. He says that the power of Majora will then be stored safe in the mask forever, and won’t reign terror for at least a long while.

So now we know where Akira Himekawa suggests the accursed mask came from. However, what about the Fierce Deity’s Mask? For those of you who don’t know, the Fierce Deity’s Mask is only obtainable if the player possesses all the masks in the game, then trades them in for it (with the exception of the other transformation masks). The Fierce Deity’s Mask can only be worn during boss fights, and transforms Link into an extremely powerful being, laser-swords and everything. Using this Mask, Majora can be beaten with ease. So where did this mask come from? Well if you haven’t seen it coming already, I personally think that the Fierce Deity’s mask came from the warrior who made Majora’s Mask. There is not really any support for this theory in the manga or game, but I think it is very plausible. So what do you guys think? Do you like this origin story of Majora’s Mask? Any thoughts on the Fierce Deity? Leave your thoughts in the comments.