The small screen and portable nature of the 3DS made my discovery of the Maiamais in A Link Between Worlds a pretty solitary experience. Despite the fact that they’ve shared many parts of my Zelda fandom with me, I never thought to tell my wife and daughter about the Maiamais. They were a small, nearly forgotten part of my Hylian journey that I thought was as lost as the Maiamais themselves until a chance encounter with a song and a misheard lyric brought the cute crustaceans into our lives.
We were driving home from Target and listening to the 2018 Japanese Zelda concert CD that I’d received for Christmas. My daughter and I were bopping our heads and humming along, as lost in the melody as a hero might be in the Lost Woods. Suddenly, my wife started singing, “Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight!”
Without a mirror to see my expression, I can only imagine that my face looked something like Dwayne Johnson’s as one of my eyebrows shot up in confusion.
“What are you singing?” I asked.
“I’m singing along to the music,” she innocently replied.
A smile crossed my face. I knew that this part of the song was actually just repeating the word “Mai” in referring to Mother Maiamai and her matronly request that Link retrieve her lost children, but I honestly loved my wife’s version even more. It was a cute rallying cry for the hero, and I could almost imagine rows of Maiamais (some waving little pom-poms) as they repeated their endearingly miniscule fight song.
When we got home, I introduced my wife and daughter to Mother Maiamai and her tiny, lost children. This time it was my wife’s chance to raise an eyebrow. What can I say, Zelda can be weird sometimes. Now, anytime this song comes on when we’re in the car, we call it the “Fight Fight Song,” and we all rock out along with the Maiamais.
