Castlevaniaanimator David Howe really wants to makeThe Legend of Zeldaanime series for adults. A live-action Netflix series of the hit Nintendo franchise was rumored back in 2015, which had fans from all over the world really excited. However, the live-action series never came into fruition, reportedly because someone at Netflix leaked the information before it was supposed to go public. With the success of theCastlevaniaseries and an upcomingSuper Mario Bros. movie on the way,Nintendo fansare starting to wonder ifThe Legend of Zeldawill be next.
“Well I think there’s precedent for it…I personally own a couple copies of the Ocarina of Time manga, so they’ve already adapted it into a serialized manga format,” said Howe.
The animator went on to note that he believes “if something works in a manga format then it would work in an anime. And then there’s also the world building.” As for world building, there are plenty of places to take a show based on theZelda franchise, along with a vast array of villains and allies to introduce.
While many Nintendo fans have hoped forThe Legend of Zelda movie adaptation, David Howe thinks that a series is the way to go. “I personally would much rather see a serialized format for Zelda as opposed to a movie…” A series could allow the storytelling to get more involved with the mythos of the franchise, while introducing new worlds at the same time and spending more time within said worlds. Howe went on and had this to say.
“I mean I think a movie could work, but having time to really explore that, the breadth of the world, in a serialized format would work really well. It would also follow the structure of the games that are, you know, temple based or boss based-you could really lump those together in couple-episode arcs.”
WhenThe Legend of Zelda Netflix serieswas first talked about, it was compared to HBO’sGame of Thrones, but for families. TheCastlevaniaseries, which is all set to premiere season 4 later this week, has been a gory R-rated affair, which is not the line that David Howe would take a possible Zelda anime series. With that being said, it wouldn’t be likeThe Legend of Zeldaanimated series from the 1980s. He explains.
“If there was my dream of a Zelda anime adaptation, it would definitely be for adults-I mean it wouldn’t be a hard R-rating likeCastlevania-I think that would be alienating for a lot of people. But I think just taking it seriously and giving the characters and the world the respect they deserve. I think that would be a lot easier to do these days than it was in the 80s.”
David Howe says that there are plenty of Zelda andMetroid fanswho work at Powerhouse Animation that “would chomp at the bit to make a show like this,” when referring toThe Legend of Zeldaanime series. As for what Howe would like to see, he says the Majora’s Mask would be a good place to start, thanks to its self-contained storyline. As to whether or not this will actually happen, that is anybody’s guess at the moment. The interview with David Howe was originally conducted byZelda Dungeon.
