Princess Zelda and Co. Get Re-Imagined as Plucky High School Teens in this New Animated Series
Posted on November 23 2020 by Emi Curtis
In an age where most of have been confined to home a lot more than we’re used to, cartoons have been going through a renaissance of sorts as people look for more things to watch. Many people have turned to old classics like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Danny Phantom, and My Life as a Teenage Robot, but this new animation from Woody Tondorf & Laura Kerger (a.k.a. “ArtistGamerGal”) promises a little old and a little new.
Hero High envisions an alternate reality where Zelda, Link, and a slew of other characters of the Zelda series are placed in a late 90’s high school slice-of-life story a la shows like Saved by the Bell and Degrassi. The end result sees a slew of cheeky references to the Zelda series and a number of subversions of the tropes of the high school drama genre, such as a “Varsity Smash Team” and Link’s voracious appetite framing him as the dopey always-hungry sidekick character.
A project with a team of nearly 20 folks behind it, including Barbara Dunkelman of RWBY fame, Hero High is a phenomenal work of animation for something created as a fan project, but the story’s a little more complicated upon some digging. The project was created some time ago by Woody Tondorf, but was wrapped up in the legal complications surrounding the use of characters from the Zelda series. It was mentioned several times on Woody and Laura’s social media platforms that the series was potentially never going to be released. However, some clever name changes and alterations of certain color schemes eventually got the show the greenlight and Laura has confirmed on her Twitter there is an Episode 2 in the works.
You can check out more of Laura’s animations on her YouTube channel [NSFW], as well as updates on Hero High on her Twitter. You can also check out the writer, Woody Tondorf, on his Twitter.
What do you think of this animation? What was your favorite reference? What other high school drama tropes do you think would be amusing mixed with Zelda? Let us know in the comments below!
Emi Curtis is an associate editor with Zelda Dungeon, having originally joined the team in late 2020. She is a freelance artist, programmer, and streamer with a healthy love of both the creative and analytical. She can frequently be found playing RPGs and Adventure games, her favorite of which being The Wind Waker. She is also quite fond of playing Zelda Randomizers. Currently, she hosts a tabletop RPG series on Twitch and operates a freelance illustration business. She can be found on Twitter and Twitch as her VTuber alter-ego Gwen Myoty, creating nerdy artwork, dungeon mastering tabletop games, and playing RPGs.
