February 11, 2023
Relevant gradings from other volumes
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
meagstudies graded
Warning: hidden spoilers for the manga AND the game the manga is based on
My feelings about this manga from my review of Part 1 still mostly hold up, but there's one major change from the game that really dampened my experience, plus a minor change that annoyed me quite a bit. For the minor change, this regards Ingo's motivations. The change just really didn't make sense to me and didn't fit with the themes of the story at all (oh, he's not actually a bad guy motivated by greed, he's just mind controlled... what?) I don't know, it just annoyed me. The major change regards Sheik and how they dealt with their identity. It felt like they just took away so much of their agency and half of what makes their character so cool. There were some interesting pieces to it, such as Sheik's role as a double agent and Link's thoughts on the reveal/Sheik's true identity, but for the most part I really didn't like it.
But other than that, I did really like this manga, and I'd gladly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Zelda.
The side stories were pretty fun too! They fit thematically with the main story and add some context to Link's childhood pre-adventure and what other stuff he's up to in the middle of his adventure. But also they aren't necessary read so you can skip them if you're only interested in the main story.