“Now do you find that more girls are playing? And I ask this question because I’ve heard
from very reliable sources about Link - that Link is hot. Is link hot to you? Uh, Link is hot.” The jury is in. Link is hot. Reggie knows it, Nintendo’s artists sure
as heck know it, and even the characters inside of Breath of the Wild know it. “...oh, my. Look at that face! You are TOTALLY my type. Hi!” But, why did Nintendo make Link so attractive? Well it turns out, there’s a pretty clear
reason, actually. Oh and this reason? She's got a name, too. Let me explain, as we unravel the mystery
of why Link is so hot. Hi there, welcome to Thomas Game Docs! So our journey to find the origin of hot Link
goes all the way back to the year 1991, with the release of A Link to the Past. Now, this game featured an unabashedly un-hot
Link. And it would be a while still until regular
old link became the hot link that we know today. But, in developing a link to the past, Nintendo
brought on a man to help write the game’s manual, by the name of Yoshiaki Koizumi, yes,
the Joy-Con magician himself. Now, Koizumi’s role in A Link to the Past
steadily grew more and more important - he was almost single handedly responsible for
plotting out and implementing the game’s dramatic introduction sequence, one which
I think really stuck with people, even up until today. And that’s not all. Because come 1993’s Link’s Awakening,
Koizumi’s role grew even more central. In this game’s end credits, he’s listed
as script writer, story, event design, boss design, manual - yeah, this guy was important. But it was only a few more years until the
Zelda formula would get turned on its head, with the release 1998’s Ocarina of Time. And this time round, Koizumi was responsible
for overseeing the design of Link himself. And here’s where things get interesting. One day, Koizumi came home to his wife, who
told him something that really stuck with him: “All of Nintendo’s characters have
funny noses. Don’t you have any handsome ones?” Koizumi was shocked. But sure enough, his wife was right. Looking at the old designs for Link, Koizumi
couldn’t help but notice their button noses. Hmm. What if this time round, Link were to be a
little more dashing, more attractive, more hot? And so, the next day Koizumi got to work designing
this new iteration of Link, alongside the game’s character artist, Yusuke Nakano. Koizumi told Nakano about all the new changes
he wanted to be made. The sideburns needed to be shorter. He needed a stronger nose. Ooh, pierce his ears. Perfect! Well actually, perhaps that was a little too
perfect. This was a nintendo game, not a copy of playboy... And so, as a finishing touch, Link was given
long underwear. That’s separate from his green tunic - underneath,
according to Koizumi, Link was wearing long underwear. Sure, whatever you say, Koizumi. And so, armed with these instructions, Nakano
swiftly got to work drawing the game’s illustrations. And while he followed Koizumi’s instructions
closely for the most part, when he got the face, Nakano decided to stray just a little. Because, he wanted to take inspiration from
somewhere else. Specifically, the face of an actor, as he
put it a “world-famous Hollywood actor.” Now, it’s impossible to know for sure who
this actor is, but Nakano gave us some hints. “ At that time, if you were to talk about
a really good-looking actor, people immediately thought of this guy. So I recall keeping in mind the point of his
nose and that strong-willed look in his eyes when I was drawing.” Ok, so it might not be Leonardo DiCaprio. But this was around the release of Titanic,
one of the world’s most famous, successful, influential films. And at the *ahem* helm of the film was Leonardo
DiCaprio. He instantly shot up the teen heartthrob rankings,
to the point that I really think that if I was a Nintendo character designer in 1998,
he is the world famous actor that would come to my mind. But, either way, it wasn’t long before the
character design of this new, hot Link was completed. But I’m afraid the story doesn’t quite
end there. You see, in the years following Ocarina of
Time, Link gradually became less hot. I mean, they didn’t exactly bring back the
button nose from before, but the character designers weren’t focused specifically on
making Link hot. Not in the same way as they were in Ocarina
of Time, anyway. But, with the development of Twilight Princess
beginning in the early / mid 2000s, Yoshiaki Koizumi wanted to give hot Link another shot. This time round, he honed in on the hypermasculine. Dark muted clothes, serious brooding face,
this link was definitely man! And this iteration of Link has sort of become
Nintendo’s defacto Link - even today it shows up in a bunch of different places, including
Nintendo’s New York store. But, this wasn’t to be the final iteration
of Link. It’s not quite perfect in the eyes of Koizumi. Let me explain. In 2017, a Zelda game was released which changed
the series' fate forever. Breath of the wild. And this new game game Yoshiaki Koizumi one
final opportunity. Another chance to redesign Link. Cool 90s Link, ehh? He was fine, but he certainly aged with the
times. There’s no mistaking that this Link was
born and created in the 1990s. As for dark, serious Twilight Princess Link? Well, much like the rest of the game, it was
reviewed a lot more highly at the time than it is now. Nowadays we look back and tend to see an overcorrection
from cartoony style of The Windwaker. It reads as more an answer to the backlash
that came with Windwaker's release than a fully thought through character from scratch. It’s almost too serious, to the point of
being kinda funny. So, in the mid 2010s, Koizumi had one final
attempt, a-a last shot at designing a hot link for the ages! And this time, he went somewhere he hadn’t
really gone before, at least not to this extent. Androgyny. This-this new Link, he wasn’t super masculine,
nor was he super feminine. He was right in the middle. As Koizumi explained himself, “I went back
to the drawing board and decided Link should be a more gender-neutral character. Hence I created the version of Link that you
see in Breath of the Wild. As far as gender goes, Link is definitely
a male, but I wanted to create a character where anybody would be able to relate to the
character.” In fact, this philosophy was so deeply ingrained
that when players saw the first trailers for breath of the wild, they incorrectly assumed
that Link could be male or female. Nintendo had to come out and say, no, Link
is still a guy. Sorry guys. So, did Koizumi, did Nintendo succeed in creating
the definitive hot Link? Well, uh, I think this wall of fanart that
I definitely cannot show you speaks for itself. It’s quite funny, that to make Link the
most hot he could be, Nintendo had to lean away from I guess what is traditionally seen
as hot. That didn’t really work for the character. A less traditional, more androgynous look
proved to be a much better fit. Take that, gender stereotypes! And so, after all this, only one question
remains. All the way back in 1998, was Yoshiaki Koizumi’s
wife happy? Did this new button nose-less design get her
approval? Well, Koizumi was asked that exact question,
actually, by fellow Nintendo staffer, producer of the Zelda series, Eiji Aonuma! “So Link is your wife’s type?” To which Koizumi replied, “Yes (firmly).” Hey, thanks for watching, this video was inspired
by a tweet by The_Skullivan, and that’s linked in the description, plus you can follow
on Twitter @thomasgdocs, and subscribe to the channel for more videos like this. And thank you to my friend Katie for appearing
in the bit in the introduction! And I’ll see you next week, it’ll be a
hoot! Bye!
