The Weekly WTF: What the Hell is the Deal With The Legend of Zelda’s Tingle?

As we know, our friends in Japan aren't averse to the ol' pervtastic. The Land of the Rising Wang brings us panty vending machines and all kinds of questionable porn. Which is why Nintendo's family-friendly focus is so amazing. When did you last see a Mario-themed hentai movie titled Princess Peach Gets Some Tentacles Violently Inserted in... Some Places? Never, that's when.

Or maybe you have, we don't know how seedy your Internet history is. But you can bet your balls that Nintendo weren't involved in it.

These guys bring us the cutesy, flowery, girly, Lifetime TV-y side of life. Pink puffballs like Kirby floating about, discussions of feelings and where this relationship's reallygoing and all of that BS. But even in this innocuous world, there's a dark presence lurking in the shadows. A dark, probably-a-sex-criminal sort of presence. And its name... is Tingle.

This freakish elfen manchild began life as a bit player in the Zelda series. His inaugural appearance was in Majora's Mask, charging top dollar for maps like the chiseling little pervert he is. This came to a head in The Wind Waker, where he'd bankrupt Link for life in exchange for translating a Triforce map or two. In that game, he escaped from jail (who in holy hell knows what he did to be incarcerated in the first place?) to his sleazy little hideout on Tingle Island, where he fleeces you.

All of which is just the kind of big-business bastardry we see in the real world all the time. We could almost forgive it, if Tingle didn't look like this. He's just all-round creeptastic in every conceivable way. Superman can't even pull off the undercrackers-on-the-outside look convincingly, and here it's just a no-go.

Tingle isn't a fairy-dude like our hero Link. He's just a plain ol' middle-aged nutbag who's obsessed with them, and wears that effing leotard to complete the look. Needless to say, we're all kinds of judging him, and nobody wants to play with this mad, mad bastard at recess.

His first starring role, DS's Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland? We don't know how much camp is too much damn camp, but we were probably perilously close there.