Why does the Japanese Majora's Mask guide cover look so different?

Most Zelda guide covers show the hero. The Japanese Wonder Life Special guide for Majora's Mask, published by Shogakukan on May 27, 2000, shows almost nothing: an extreme close crop of Majora's Mask itself, one huge orange and green eye staring out of a black cover.

The American covers make the opposite choice. Nintendo Power's guide shows the full mask with rainbow rays bursting behind it, and Prima's cover drops the mask into a swirling vortex. Both explain the image; the Japanese cover simply confronts you with it, the way the mask confronts Link in the game.

Japan's second Majora's Mask book took the other road entirely. Enterbrain's volume is a 191 page data book, credited to CB's PROJECT, heavy on systems and numbers. Its cover art has not been verified from a clean photograph, so this page makes no claim about it.

For a collector the Wonder Life cover is the one that reads across a room, and it is a useful reminder that Japanese guide art was not a translation of the American art. The two markets art directed the same game independently.