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The other day I posted a small article about Japanese fans’ reaction to Cloud’s Smash Bros. announcement. I received a number of requests to do a similar article on Japanese fans’ reaction to the new “Linkle” character in the upcoming Hyrule Warriors game for the 3DS, so I decided to take a look.

First, here are some official images of Linkle:

And, just for reference, here’s her Japanese video announcement, just in case it somehow differed from the announcement in other regions:

For more details and the history of how Linkle came to be, check out this article.

Anyway, before looking at Japanese comments, there are a few things to note:

These are random comments from Japanese game news sites, Japanese message boards, and Twitter. There are so few listed here that they shouldn’t be considered representative of all Japanese gamers, that would be a silly thing to assume. This is only to satisfy readers’ curiosity!

Because of the L/R issue that occurs in Japanese pronunciation, Linkle’s name is pronounced a lot like “Rinkle” in Japanese.

In Japanese, Tingle’s name is actually more like “Chinkle” or “Tinkle”.

Now for the comments!

doujinshi is unavoidable

Wouldn’t it be neat if it turned out Link was a girl all along, like with Samus?

She’s cute, but there’s something I don’t like about her

Surprisingly cute!

Reminds me of the elf in Dragon’s Crown

She looks creepy, like too much plastic surgery

Damn, she’s cute!

A crossbow in both hands is stupid

I wonder if they’ll call her “Linket” overseas

Now if only they’d let you choose to be a boy or girl in the main Zelda games

You hardly see braids like this these days

Does this mean we’ll be able to choose a guy or a girl in the next Zelda maybe?

I can see Zelda getting so jealous that she’ll assassinate her

She’s adorable!

Is she supposed to be in her 30s?

She reminds me of Link’s little sister from Wind Waker, but grown up!

So many girl characters

I like her!

She looks cute. I personally prefer her design from the old unused art, though

I wish she had boobs…

She’s completely different from that female version of Darth Vader I saw one time

I assume they wanted a girl name that started with “Link”… but the name keeps reminding me of “Tingle”

I hope she’ll be added to the Wii U version too…

She reminds me of Zelda from Skyward Sword

Whoa, so cute!

I bet this is what foreigners will get most excited about from this Nintendo Direct

Everyone complaining about how she looks on the 3DS should know she’s gonna be on the Wii U version too apparently

Linkle Linkle koolo limpah!

plz make doujinshi of her being swallowed by Like Likes kthx

She’s cute! She reminds me of elves from Dragon Quest

I’m interested

Just an aside, but female versions of male characters are a common sight in American comics too. I guess perverted minds go beyond things like countries, races, and religions lol

Lame name

They must be running out of ideas or something

Now gimme a female Ganon

A crossbow in both hands? How does she reload then?

Linkle, a child born of Link and Tingle. Which means…

I wonder if she’ll be added to Smash Bros. eventually

If they make her Tingle’s daughter it’ll be hilarious to see the foreigners go berserk

Hello, I’m 35 years old and a fairy

An angel

Her name makes me think of wrinkles

Put Saria in and I’ll buy three copies

She looks cute in the drawings but like absolute crap in 3D, get your shit together you no-talent hacks

We don’t need Linkle, just give us Aryll or some other Zelda character

No! Her name’s too close to Tingle’s!

I bet she’s Zelda and Link’s daughter

I thought it was Link transformed into a girl at first. And she’s not Tingle, either…

I always felt that Zelda the hero and Link the princess would’ve been a perfect fit

The dropped character miraculously revives!

Are they gonna use this name overseas too? Seems so much like “wrinkle”

Is she a Dragon Quest elf?

I feel so bad that her name is so similar to Tingle’s

I’m surprised by how cute she is!

Seems like a crossdresser

This has doujinshi potential

Nice!

Too bad for the 3DS’ shit graphics

I thought it said Tingle at first (I have old man eyesight)

Wow!

And thus the doujin world was jolted awake

She looks tough!

I wonder if she’s his kid sister or something

Get your act together, 3D artists! The drawings are nice, but the 3D versions aren’t cute at all

I was expecting a female Tingle at first rofl

You have my attention

I read somewhere about someone changing Link into a girl for their daughter’s storytime, but I didn’t think it’d actually come true!

For the most part, comments I came across were postive and were overwhelmingly on the “Whoa, she’s cute!” side. Also, while looking around for Japanese comments I actually found a Japanese video that translated English comments about her into Japanese!

Unfortunately, it appears the original video was removed from YouTube sometime during the past two years.

From the comments listed in this video, it seems the reaction is almost the exact same inside and outside of Japan. It’s funny how we’re taking a look at each other like this though, wondering, “What are they saying over there?!” Lately, it seems like we’re all saying the same things about these Nintendo announcements!