Horrific Mario Manga Shows 1-UP Mushroom Growing Out Of Plumber

Let’s all get on the identical web page earlier than going any additional: this isn’t canon. This isn’t hidden lore, endorsed by Nintendo, that you need to arm your self with and take with you on an official foundation each time you play a Mario sport any more. OK?

OK good. So, right here’s a panel from a 1996 manga (Super Mario 64 4Koma Gag Battle), which is suggesting that perhaps 1-UP mushrooms develop out of the our bodies of the Marios who’ve died earlier than you.

Let’s improve:

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Fuck.

As the ever-wonderful Supper Mario Broth point out, that is from a manga that’s “filled with jokes and eccentric theories”, and that it “should be taken more as an interesting thought experiment than anything that would actually be endorsed by Nintendo!”

Let’s try this, then. Let’s take this as a thought experiment. Imagine that is actually how this all works. What it’s suggesting for the way in which the Mushroom Kingdom operates, and Mario’s relation to it, is fascinating. It’s some Returnal, Groundhog Day kind shit. Mario isn’t simply right here to save lots of the Princess. He’s trapped right here, in a spot exterior of not simply Brooklyn, however area and time.

Every 1-UP mushroom you see is a former, failed try, the place a Mario—you, similar to you, but additionally not you—has died, his heroic spirit extracted and preserved for the subsequent Mario. Who can be you, till his demise, when the mushroom can be collected by…you.

As replies to Supper Mario Broth’s tweet have identified, it’s an concept extra not too long ago explored in this traditional Extra Fabulous comedian from 2019:

I really like the concept that in 2023 lots of people’s first ideas—mine included—weren’t in regards to the timeline stuff however drawing fungus analogies with The Last Of Us. And that this might be such a Nintendo tackle it. In Naughty Dog’s universe, the mushrooms rising out of lifeless individuals are a risk to all of humanity, and create ravenous zombies. In Nintendo’s, they’re only a cute little factor that helps the participant by giving them particular powers. Well, “cute” offered you don’t take into consideration the place they got here from…