Legend of Zelda Art Director Takaya Imamura revealed on Twitter (X) where the name "Majora" came from. Read on for more details about Imamura’s reveal and The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask’s classical appeal.
Imamura Reveals Majora’s Name Origins
A Most Unlikely Portmanteau
Takaya Imamura, a former Legend of Zelda Art Director turned university professor, just revealed on Twitter (X) where he got the namesake for his sole directorial contribution to the Legend of Zelda series, Majora’s Mask.
Originally released in 2000 for the N64, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask was certainly an odd duck among its action-adventure peers. While still sporting the stylings of Link’s usual adventures, the game had a darker tone, featuring a 3-day doomsday as its main premise and plenty of nightmare-inducing character designs—the grinning moon threatening to crash into Termina comes to mind.
However, none of the game’s characters, stylings, and settings, no matter how iconic, were as impactful to the game’s events as its main antagonist and namesake, Majora. While many gamers were content to leave Majora’s name as an arbitrary creative choice that wasn’t tied to reality, Imamura’s recent tweet proved otherwise.
As revealed by Imamura, "Majora"—spelt and pronounced as "Mujura" in the game’s native Japanese—is a portmanteau of Imamura’s surname and "Jumanji", an American fantasy film released just 5 years prior.
Considering the time-traveling elements present in both titles, it’s no surprise that Imamura chose this particular Robin Williams movie as the inspiration for the game’s main antagonist. It’s not a lore-breaking tidbit by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s definitely something you can add to your next video game trivia night.
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What does the “Majora” in The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask mean? Art director explains
This was like learning what hot dogs were made out of. Super disappointing